Guest Post: Ring Ring

Today's guest is the woman I have no shame in admitting my blog crush about. She's been revamping her blog and working on another {secret} project and I missed her so much, I asked her to guest post. Please welcome Erika from The Girl Next Door Grows Up back to The Scoop on Poop!! Also note that today is Jellybean's 11th birthday and I will be slammed with sleepover details for you next week. Happy Birthday, Jellybean!!!

Hi!  Some of you know me, others do not.  My name is Erika and I write the blog, The Girl Next Door Grows Up.  My friend Stephanie has been ever so nice in asking me to do a guest post for her and I must say that I jumped at the chance.   I have not been writing for a few weeks since I am in the middle of redesigning my blog and (ahem) 2 other new projects that are sort of a secret.

And no, I won’t say what they are, but they are cool.

It is an honor to be here especially on Jellybean’s Birthday. 

Thank you Stephanie so much.  It is quite a treat to be here.  Now here is my take on 800 numbers…

*Ring-Ring*

My husband Kevin has a thing about me not answering the phone when either a number I don’t know calls us, or if it is an 800 number.

He hates it in fact.

Now, we do have a number similar to a car wash so we get many calls asking for our Hours of Operation and in one old edition of the phone book, our number is actually listed as The Car Wash so when I do see a name and number that I don’t know, I just keep right on walking by.

I figure they will get the hint when the answering machine clicks on.

Sometimes, I do stop and pick up the phone and give the caller the correct number. 

As for the 800 numbers…

 I have been asked to be on the Do Not Call list.

I have spoken to credit card, bank card, and charity organizations and politely asked to be removed from the list.

It never works.

Even though I donated clothes last week, they keep calling and calling and calling every week to see if I have more.

How much more can I have?   I am all tapped out. 

Then there are the charity calls.  Now, I have my list of organizations that we donate money to.  I do not randomly donate money over the phone because I am certain it is a scam. 

Unfortunately, we get lots of calls asking for money.

Mostly I walk by the ringing phone, but sometimes I don’t and I answer.

I tell them that, “No I can’t donate at this time.” and then they ask for money again. 

“Can I donate $50?”

No.  I can’t donate anything at this time.

“How about $25?”

No I can’t donate ANY MONEY.

“Maybe $10?”

And this is my breaking point.

I have been polite.  I have already stated I couldn’t donate anything so what do I do?

I lie.

I tell the person on the other end of the phone that we have lost our jobs and have no money.

I know.  That is probably a bad thing to do, but I have a hard time just hanging up the phone on them.  I figure they are supposed to do their script no matter what I say, but there is nothing in their script when I tell them that we are broke.

Oh, and being broke gets you off of their call list faster than you can say “Buh-Bye.”

Please tell me, what do you do in these situations?

Guest Blog: Google & Birthdays

Today I have a guest. You met her yesterday when she told you what kind of car she would be. She's back today to warn you about the dangers of googling.

I hope you remembered to bring the balloons and I've got the cake. It's also her birthday!! Whose birthday you ask?  It's The Girl Next Door Grows Up !!! Happy Birthday!

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Never Google Medical Symptoms – Especially Broken Hips 

First I want to say a HUGE thank you to The Drama Mama for asking me to be her Scoop of the Week!  

Especially today which is my Birthday!!!

The first time I met Stephanie, a Google Alert was sent to my email telling me that I was linked to a site I had never been to before.  I stopped on by and saw my blog button on her sidebar.  So I read some of her posts, left a few comments and we became friends.

Thank you Google Alerts!

But today I am going to tell you why you should never Google medical symptoms… specifically broken hips.

As my regular readers know, I have a Birthday Curse. 

Bad things happen to me, or people close to me, on or around my birthday.  It just happens and I have come to dread this week.

I wish I was exaggerating.

This week started off great.  On Monday, after a couple of months of computer problems, I fixed my computer all by myself.

I was so excited.  

That same night my daughter, Emily, played a softball game and got hit in her mouth while trying to catch a fly ball.

Good-Bye Tooth.

That wasn’t so bad, since it was a baby tooth and it meant the Tooth Fairy would visit.

We like to find the bright side of things.

Tuesday also started out to be a great day.  It was warm and sunny and I raced around getting all of my chores and shopping done so we could finally swim as it has been raining for days and days.

We put Sarah down for her nap and we hopped into the pool.

It was so much fun!  We played and raced and splished and splashed.

It was when I was straddling a floaty and Emily decided to “overtake” my floaty that the good times went South.

She jumped up, and down came her hard and bony knee with great force, right into my hip bone.

You see, I have a way with words.  If I get hurt, I let the words fly…LOUD.

However, this pain was so great, I could not find any words.  I just sunk right into the water trying to find my leg to stand.

I made it out of the pool and got to a chair.

In hindsight, I feel sorry for poor Emily because I was just sitting in my chair muttering over and over:

“No.  Not now.  I don’t want to be laid up now.  I have things to do.  I want to bike.  I want to play.  No. No No.”

And the pain was so great.  I still couldn’t move.

I texted Tyler and he told me to MOVE.  So I did.

I gingerly changed clothes and then Emily and I went back outside to sit in the shade.  Every movement I made produced pain so I picked up my iPad and Googled, “Broken Hip Symptoms”.

Never do this people.  Never.

In a nutshell there are 2 types of broken hips.  One where you can’t stand and one where you can still walk, but with pain.

But with both types, according to Google, both kinds produced imminent death by pneumonia and other complications which would inevitably lead to death.

So that’s it, I was going to die, for sure.

Again, I texted Tyler:  “Do you think my hip is broken?”

He responded, “Do you think you can still have sex?”

Yes…  I think I can!  

So the moral of this story is if you think you can have sex, you are most likely not going to die.

And, it really helps to have a funny husband to put things into perspective.

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Please leave her some love on her blog, wish her a safe and happy birthday, too. Thanks for letting me party with you today, and I really do hope you have a fantastic day, Laura!!

What's the strangest or funniest info you've gotten from googling?