Monday bloody Monday. And five things I will never buy again.

So, Monday came again.  Isn’t that wonderful?  It came fully loaded with fighting children, fevers, crying, stray cats, no showers, and sunshine.  I think that last bit was some kind to higher power’s attempt at irony.  Nice.  Score: one – nothing.

Here are the top five things that I would NEVER purchase or keep again:

1. A house that has a bathroom, powder room or toilet off the kitchen, beside the kitchen or in the kitchen.  While I realize that it was my destiny to have just such a house, honest to Hades, I could live the rest of my life without ever being in my kitchen and hearing ‘poo’ sounds, smelling ‘poo’ smells or hearing a toilet flush, or worse, not flush after being privy to the first two ‘never wanna agains’  I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE my house.  It was love at first sight and I would not trade it for the world, but I do have many days when I seriously consider losing the main floor powder room.  It probably does not help my affection for the location of said amenities that the front door is a straight shot from the toilet in the powder room, so unsuspecting visitors can be completely met with the sight of one or another of my darling children sitting on the toilet smiling, grunting or just chillin.’  Yes, yes my children are class-ay (and apparently not shy).

2.  Diet pills (OTC or Rx), diet foods, replacements, etc.  These so DO NOT work.  There is no ‘magic pill’ to lose weight.  You fat?  Stop eating too much and get your ass moving.  You out of shape?  There is not a pill out there that will give you six-pack abs or rock hard buns.  Waste of money, risky to your health and  ineffective?  Three strikes – you’re out!  I’ve realized that if I want to change my body, reduce its size or shape, I’m the only one who can do it – the multi-billion dollar diet industry is NOT in business to help ME.  It exists to help themselves.  To get richer and more powerful and influential. While I get fatter and more discouraged.  No thank you.

3.  A brand new car.  I have purchased ONE brand new car in my life.  And I had the five years of payments to prove it.  And in year six, it was written off.  Cost average, even with the insurance payout (which was nominal, even though it was still a ‘new’ car in my eyes and very well maintained), that car cost me $400 a month, plus gas, insurance, and maintenance.  Had I looked for a good used car, that monthly cost would have easily been cut at least in half and it would have not hurt quite as much when the car bit the biscuit (you know, when that fool turned left out of a side street right in front of me, in the rain? Yeah, that biscuit).  The least cost-effective way to own a car, for me anyway,  is to purchase it brand new.  NEVER AGAIN.

4. Peanut Butter Snickers and Chocolate Philadelphia spread (not together).  Two words: Nasty as shit.  Ok, three words, but honestly these are two completely pukey products.  Peanut Butter Snickers is not like a Snickers bar (my favourite), and not like Wonderbar (also a good choice), and nothing  at all like a Reese Peanut Butter Cup (but really, what is?).  It is like they (the chocolate-making people were trying to create something that was a combination of all three of these gems in one package.  And they failed.  Miserably.  Well, miserable for me anyway, because I really wanted it to be delicious and it was nasty.  As shit. And that made me sad.  As shit.  Oh, and the Phili Chocolate spread – VERY high hopes that it would be more Nutella-like and less chocolate cream cheese like and I was disappointed.  This Phili product is also nasty. But even more than that, it is irritating.  Nutella is wonderful, but so, so, so BAD for you, so I don’t buy it because I cannot be trusted not to just sit down with the jar and a spoon and kill it in an evening.  No similar risks with the Philadelphia chocolate spread.  It will be the first thing, in a long time, that I just pitch and not fight my way through to finish, so as to not waste food or money.  Looking on the bright side (because, let’s face it, that is what I do), this is not like chocolate cream cheese, which I feared it would be, and the texture is not gag-inducing or weird at all, but the taste just is not there.  It’s bland, plain nothing-ness made me sad and did nothing at all to alleviate my chocolate craving.  After sad it just make me irritated and angry, so I won’t be wasting money on that again.  I can get pissed off for free and spend my chocolate dollars on something that actually tastes like chocolate.  Like Godiva.

5. A laptop from Wal-Mart.  My Toshiba laptop died last year after four years of faithful, constant and reliable service.  We were so close, I really never expected it to leave me.  But it did.  And it took a lot of my shit with it (it must have been someone’s ex-boyfriend in a previous life).  And because I stay home and raise the children, keep the house and cook the food, I do not bring in much actual money.  So I feel guilty spending actual money on myself (although Mr. K.B. encourages me to do spend said money 🙂 ), so I set about to find the cheapest yet still workable laptop solution that I could.  Enter Wal-Mart.  They had the lowest price on an Acer laptop.  The processor was acceptable, the hard drive was acceptably large and the memory was adequate.  I’m not a gamer, I do not watch television (often) on my computer and my graphic art skills suck, so I really do not need anything super fancy (as much as I admit to liking super fancy computers).  So I bought it.  And while it’s fine, it is really nothing more than that.  The keyboard is off center or screwy, so for the first couple of months, my 75 to 80 wpm average, dropped to about 20 because the keys were in the wrong place and I had to spend so much time deleting wonky words.  No bells and whistles.  It’s functional but I doubt that it will last me as long as the Toshiba did. But, so far it has kept me online and blogging, so while I would not purchase another Acer, I do not totally despise this one (not like those fucking Peanut Butter Snicker bars – I’m so bitter about those, it is barely amusing). Time to start a ‘New computer’ savings account at ING (oh, how I love ING accounts!).

I’ll be back later this week with a list of 5 things that I LOVE and would totally purchase again and again (but will not, because that would make me a hoarder, and I’m too fat for t.v.), just to create some balance between complaining and praising the things that I have chosen to have in my life.

How about you?  What would you never, ever buy again?  What if it were free?  Would you take it?