Even after getting puked on three times and catching a death cold from my germ infested niece and nephew, I was still sad to drop them off at their daycare. Leaving Carter is especially heartbreaking a) because he hates being left so much he watches you drive away through the window, and b) because I think I was just making headway on why he should hate NASCAR and deer hunting.

I was Mormon once, and now I’m not. But for that brief time that I was, my parents forced me to attend Primary. I hated it. Everything single thing about it, but mostly I dreaded sitting in those ugly, orange plastic chairs. They didn’t match my pink dress, and at six I was very into things matching. But my OCD inspired neurosis isn’t the topic of this post. Hookers are. No really, they are.

My primary teacher was obsessed with talking about what kids wanted to be when they grew up. She liked filling our heads with silly things like a future career as an Avon lady, or better yet a mother, which I guess is an acceptable career for me with the right amount of prescription drugs and wine.

I didn’t want to be an Avon lady when I grew up. In fact, I was terrified of the woman who came to our house trying to peddle makeup to my mother. She smelled bad, like 18 kinds of perfume and peppermint gum. To this day the smell of peppermint gum makes me want to curl up into a fetal position and cry.

I sat and listened to each kid explain what they wanted to be when they grew up and why. “I want to be a doctor because I like to help people.” “I want to be a fireman because I like red trucks.”

When it was my turn I looked at the teacher, smiled and said, “I want to be a prostitute when I grow up because they get lots of presents and play with boys all day long.”

My teacher gasped. I didn’t know what I had done wrong. I was six and certainly didn’t know what a prostitute actually was. To this day my parents can’t explain where I came up with such an idea. Although one can’t help but suspect one my four uncles was somehow responsible for this knowledge. Kudus to whichever one it was.

And while I didn’t grow up to be a prostitute, I still adore receiving presents, and would much rather spend my day among a group of men than women.

My heart broke a little bit today.  I’ve known for a while that my brother and his wife are getting a divorce, but it wasn’t until today that I knew their four-year-old twins, Hannah and Carter, knew.  My brother and his wife are both out of town on business, so I’m staying with the kids for a few days.

Hannah: “Aunt Sarah I have to tell you something…  Mommy isn’t going to live with Daddy anymore because she’s going to get her own house. We might live there with her.”

Me: “But who’s going to live with your Daddy? He’ll get incredibly lonely living all by himself.”

Hannah: “He’s going to get a new Carter.  Or maybe you can live with him Aunt Sarah.”

Me: “Hannah that’s silly.  There is no such thing as a new Carter.  We only have one Carter and Daddy isn’t getting a new Carter.  He’s getting a new car.  Different, but very close.”

Carter: “Maybe when I grow up I can buy a house where Mommy, Daddy and Hannah can all live and nobody will fight.”

Hannah: “Maybe when I grow up I can be Jasmine because she is a total princess.”

Me: “This is much too serious of a conversation for you guys to be having over dinosaur chicken nuggets.”

Hannah: “Yeah, we should go to Starbucks.”

The sheer stupidity of Utah liquor laws never ceases to amaze me. Last night while at Club 90 for the “Rock of Love” tour I was so pissed off. It’s illegal for me to have two shots in my vodka tonic, but it’s perfectly legal to serve a pregnant woman who looks like she could deliver at any moment. I so badly wanted to walk up to her and tell her off, but I’ve done that in bars before and guess what? It doesn’t change a damn thing. For me to point out to the parent(s) in question what horrible parents they are going to make changes nothing. They will still make shitty parents, and chances are they’ll be back in the bar the following night.

The pregnant woman kept encouraging her friends—who, incidentally, were smoking around her—to feel the baby kicking. Aimee and I sat there in complete and utter disgust. When she took her shoes off and walked around the bar in bare feet I had to stop watching her. It was just too much. That poor, poor baby…

I’m 32 and single. Which makes zero sense because I’m quite fabulous. Sometimes a giant pain in the ass, but I’m convinced it’s really quite adorable. So why am I single you ask? GOOD QUESTION! I’d like to think it has nothing to do with my issues and is really a matter of not meeting the right guy. Although, I finally figured out whom the “right guy” is! You’re dying to know, are you?

Well, there is a couple that would fit the bill. I know, I know. The more the merrier, right? But for this post there is one in particular—one perfect man for me. The only problem is he doesn’t actually exist outside of television–The “Gilmore Girls” to be specific. Yes, I’m fully aware of my unhealthy obsession with this show. Fuck off. I don’t care one little bit!

Luke Danes is my dream man!

I love him soooooo much I could totally overlook the flannel and backwards baseball cap, because he cooks AND makes a killer cup coffee. Enough said.

Isn’t he like totally dreamy and purrrrr-fect for me? Now that my future TV husband is decided I should quit putting of my school research paper by watching re-runs on the family channel and get to work.

With the weather as close to summer as I’ve felt in a very long time, I thought there was no better time to remind you of the dangers that come along with the season. No, not sunburns. Worse. Far worse. Open car windows are far more dangerous than skin cancer for a smart ass like me.

This afternoon while driving to the airport to pick Ben up I forgot my windows were open. I was impatiently waiting for a man and his toddler son to cross the street so I could make a right turn, when I mistakenly yelled, “Pick the kid up and carry him asshole. Let’s go already!” Of course my windows were open and they heard me.  I felt horrible.

Don’t let this happen to you people! Roll up your car window before uttering bitchy comments. I’d like to say I learned my lesson, but chances are this will happen half a dozen more times before summer ends.

That’s What She Said
Religion Rocks–Gilgal Garden gives this conference-dodging gal a way to get in touch with her roots.

by Sarah Nielson
snielson@inthisweek.com

Last weekend was the LDS church’s 178th Annual General Conference. Conference weekend always takes me back to my childhood when my parents forced my brothers and I to watch conference on TV. I absolutely hated it and still haven’t forgiven them.

Every year when conference weekend rolls around I find myself suddenly hit with a twinge of religious guilt – my mother would be oh-so-proud. Since I’m not a practicing Mormon, or a practicing member of any religion for that matter, I had to find other, more creative ways to get my Jesus on.

Clad in my favorite “Jesus Rocks” T-shirt and armed with a full flask and camera, I headed to Gilgal Garden for a little religious sightseeing. The garden is home to 12 religious sculptures and over 70 stones engraved with scriptures and philosophical texts.

I’d never heard of the garden before the woman my brother is dating mentioned it. I started asking around and found that many of my friends already knew about it, and even have fond memories of breaking onto the grounds as kids. I was able to talk one of those friends into going with me. We were going on a Sunday, and just in case it was closed I wanted someone who could scale a fence with me.

I was slightly disappointed when we arrived and found we weren’t alone. It’s more of a challenge to poke fun at the creepiness of it all when a church-clothed family is within earshot. Thank God (pun very much intended) the family left shortly and my regularly-scheduled sarcasm quickly returned.

I’ve always had a difficult time understanding religion, so viewing it in sculpture form only confused me further. We wandered around the grounds and tried to make sense of all the verses carved into the stone. A couple I recognized as Ralph Waldo Emerson’s poems, but the rest were too scriptural for me to be familiar with. All those early morning parentally-forced scripture study sessions didn’t make a lasting impression, apparently.

“The Sphinx” is the best-known sculpture, and by far the creepiest. The face was carved to replicate Joseph Smith and the similarity was uncanny. It looked far too close to the pictures my parents had hanging on their walls when I was a child, which gave me the heebie-jeebies. I quickly shrugged them off, and had my friend snap a picture of me with my finger up the statue’s nose. If I’m going to Mormon hell, I want it to be worth it.

My favorite sculpture was “The Monument to the Trade.” The sculpture is a self-portrait of Thomas Child, the man behind the garden. Child is holding a Bible under one arm and blueprints of some sort under the other, but it was the pants that won me over. Checkered pants on a man, sculpture or real, are always a treat – and by treat I mean giggle-worthy. We took some slightly lewd photos not suitable for my mother’s Christmas newsletter or print.

Once I got home and looked through all the pictures we had taken, my religious guilt doubled. I knew I should have just stayed home and watched “The Ten Commandments” to get my religious fix and also to mark Charlton Heston’s death.

Fist and foremost my mother and father for not being wealthy enough to make me a trust fund brat. I think this is very selfish of them.

Libby because reading her post about swimsuit season while eating chocolate covered espresso beans made me feel guilty enough to put them away. If I knew her I’d call her and fire her.

The Kid because he doesn’t share my excitement for “The Hills” rendering him completely worthless to me.

Rlo because he doesn’t have time for BFF night until next Tuesday, which is completely unacceptable. Who else am I going to boss around? Ben is out of town.

My brother, Matt, because he lives in Provo and I want to see his kids tonight, but don’t want to drive that far.

Bishop Deal because he had every opportunity to hook me up with Jermaine from “Flight of the Conchords” and didn’t. I think it’s because he’s Mormon and didn’t want to be responsible for the humping that would most definitely ensue.

I hate driving. HATE IT! However, driving behind this car yesterday made being stuck in the car worth it.

Hopefully you can see the Jesus doll in the back window. And not just any Jesus but Crucifiction Jesus. I guess it’s never too early to teach that baby on board that Jesus died for your sins, and damn it you will learn to appreciate this fact, OR ELSE!

I had the craziest dream last night. I blame the piece of chocolate cake I had right before bed. I was at some random hotel in Amsterdam. Why Amsterdam? Probably because that’s where some of my weirdest blog comments have been coming from lately. The Yuppie and Marky were also staying in this hotel.

For some reason my front tooth fell out. Yuppie wouldn’t take me to the dentist because we were in a foreign country and he’d never read a biography on the dental work there. If you knew him you’d know that part could totally be true. I found Marky and begged him to take me to a dentist but he kept telling me to go back to bed so he could put money under my pillow. In this dream he was really into Euros, disturbingly so. I tried calling Rlo multiple times but just like in real life he wouldn’t answer his phone. Jerk.

I got mad at both of them and tried to walk home. Obviously that didn’t work and I ended up in a library, where I checked out multiple books on dental work. When I got back to the hotel and gave the books to The Yuppie he looked at me and said, “Sarah you know I’m very anti-TV and your tooth falling out is a direct result of your reality television habits. So I suggest either calling one of your TV friends for help, or just going toothless and become one with your inner NASCAR self.”

I woke up super pissed at The Yuppie and my subconscious. If I’m going to be in Amsterdam you’d think I’d at least make my way into a hash café, but oh nooooo.