Honestly, is there a MORE LAME, LYING excuse out there? Especially if you've texted the person before, so you have their contact info right there in the messaging program so you just hit "reply". I swear, "I didn't get your text" must be RIGHT UP THERE with "I've been hacked!" for the Technologically Clueless Liar Attempting To Place Blame Elsewhere.

Except, of course, when the protester of innocence in question is Mojo, a blameless and saintlike creature who is also extremely technologically savvy. Not quite enough to be a true geek, but close enough that she gets most of the jokes. As Mojo continually likes to point out to you lesser beings, she's been online back when it was all done via Unix commands, typed out in knee-deep snow uphill both ways. Yadda yadda yadda, someone shut her up.

So for those of you who have been paying attention, Mojo has recently indulged in purchasing a small set of kitchen cabinets ONLINE. This is in and of itself a miracle that now takes place in Mojo's lifetime: after doing my own measuring and designing and deciding (all online--okay, except the measuring part; that was done with a measuring tape in the kitchen itself), I ordered them and paid for them and had them delivered without ever having to leave the discomfort of my ripped-apart and cabinetless home.

Some people ABSOLUTELY DESPISE beards. I am not one of them. I don't necessarily ADORE them either; to be honest I don't think about them much one way or another. I don't give two figs about facial hair or lack thereof, or clothes, or jewelry either, for that matter. I BARELY NOTICE, except to say something like "the guy with the beard" if pointing out someone in a crowd. Assuming he has one, of course.

I WILL say, if a man is unfortunate enough to not have a chin, a beard DOES help his appearance, usually. But if he is smart and funny and kind--and not necessarily in that order--the appearance part is somewhat secondary (at the risk of sounding even more saintlike than Mojo actually is. "Oh, my, just when I think Mojo cannot be any more perfect, and here she goes telling me she doesn't care about appearances" you are now thinking. Yes, pathetic minion, Mojo is indeed that wonderful).

Oh, and in case you think otherwise--due to Mojo's propensity for sainthood--no, this post has NOTHING AT ALL to do with the Movember idea of growing facial hair in November for some sort of charity. Not being someone who can effectively grow facial hair, I'm not sure how that works in the first place, to be honest. But I can assure you that the Favorite Husband, who is nothing if not delightfully socially unaware most of the time, knows even LESS about Movember than *I* do. It's just That Time of Year For Beard Growin'.

So the Favorite Husband decided he wanted to rent a dumpster to get rid of various things--many inherited when we first purchased the property, over a DECADE ago. The outbuildings were filled with various types of useless junk--old lawn mowers, card tables, car parts, you name it--and we have added one or two items to the mix. The dump in this tiny small town is very limited in what they will take, and when. So dumpster it is!

Mojo is a laid-back and saintlike creature, so whenever the Favorite Husband gets an idea in his head she's all like "Fine; whatever." Besides which, due to recently acquiring a fairly new kitchen range I could now dispose of our old stove top and oven. I also had my eye on removing the nonfunctional dishwasher occupying some three feet of cabinet space. Storage space has always been at a premium, but since I had to destroy another whole three feet to accomodate the new range I was eager to reclaim what I could.

Mojo and her Favorite Husband often--to my perpetual shame--find ourselves using cutesy shorthand private jokes to make various observations. So that one of us merely turns to the other and says some very short phrase that sounds like a non sequitur, but to us it is Pregnant With Meaning, and the other knows immediately what is really being said. And, very sadly indeed, many of these are the product of popular television shows rather than something Lofty and Literary. Like "Jerk Store".

Anyone who has watched the show Seinfeld for any length of time immediately knows what the phrase means. And yet I was shocked, when Googling it, to see that the Urban Dictionary actually has an entry for it; there are several t-shirts and posters featuring it; and our cutesy little shorthand, if we actually said it in front of people, would probably be recognized by a great number of people. So much for us being so clever and original and whatnot.

Given the recent kurfuffle with apparent apologist sleaze John Grisham, Mojo is starting to suspect that ye olde “I clicked on that link accidentally” is fast becoming the new (or the old) “I was hacked!” In other words, a super-lame LIE to cover up reprehensible--or at least mildly questionable--behavior. This, I suspect, is the same group of people who characterize a multi-year embezzling scheme as “a mistake” or “a temporary lapse in judgement” and get all huffy and indignant when you have the SELF-RIGHTEOUS TEMERITY to point out that um, no, I don’t see how that’s a MISTAKE. Dialing a wrong number is a MISTAKE. Dialing the same number every night for a year and staying on the line for an hour each time.... I can’t help but think at some point in the gray it ceases to be a "mistake" and kinda becomes an intentional act.

(Hey, at least John Grisham has being white and over sixty going for him. Which, according to him apparently, is some sort of get-out-of-jail-free card. Which Mojo likewise finds kinda disgusting, in a different yet sadly similar sort of way.)

Mojo has been on the innertubes for a LONG TIME. Pre-web days. Text only UNIX days. I’ve seen some pretty terrible and/or shocking things in those decades. NONE of which--and I mean NONE--were encountered ACCIDENTALLY. Yes, folks, I’ve had to ACTIVELY SEARCH THEM OUT and KNOWINGLY click on the links. Yep. I did it. All by myself.