Heather Christena Schmidt

Well, faithful blog followers, this afternoon I saw the commercial for Paranormal Activity 4 and I was again reminded that I have a whole entire list of guilty pleasures, the Paranormal Activity movies being one of them.

Although, while the majority of people’s guilty pleasures typically involve some sort of hedonistic pleasure – people getting erotic on the beach; old ladies getting their toes licked by cats whilst they savor every moist, titilating bite of a spoonful of Duncan Hines vanilla bean frosting – mine are typically just pleasurable in the sense that they all further my cynicism and misanthropy.

Here they are, in complete form.

#1 Eating in old, rundown places full of old people

I love going to old, rundown places full of old people to eat. There are a few locally that I cannot get enough of. The food is usually crap and the service is generally awkward, but it’s so much fun to sit there and watch all the weirdos that frequent those types of places. They aren’t always old, and they aren’t always weirdos, but they make for stories nonetheless.

There is a place near my dad’s house that we go to all the time and it is constantly rife with oddities. Old women are always walking around the place, rubbing their own asses as they ramble about wanting to sit in the one semi-attractive waiter’s section (I don’t think he’s attractive in the least bit, actually). It’s near the government center, so there are often a nice mix of whacko attorneys and recently released parolees as well. The best part is that they serve alcohol, and those senior citizens sure do like to drink. I watched two ladies (both of whom stood there while they waited to be seated in “Jose’s section,” rubbing their asses excessively, which is something I see old ladies do all the time and just don’t get); watched them suck back three bottles of champagne over the course of an hour and a half lunch once, and they both ordered hot dogs with apple sauce. Weird, huh?

#2 Buying shoes

I just purged my closet of clothing I never wear and shoes I haven’t touched in years. It was painful, to say the least; and the only thing that got me through was the fact that I knew I was doing it to justify shopping.

I love buying shoes, even when I know I’m not going to wear them often. Foot fetish? No. Shopping addiction? Not really. No, I love buying shoes because while doing so I  fantasize about all the people whose toes I can “accidentally” step on in them.

#3 Seeing the Paranormal Activity movies in the theater

Not just any theater, though – it has to be a theater chockfull of people that are screaming and yelling, and “oh no guuuuurl”ing the entire time. This requires a number of different factors to be in place, and a lot of research. When the first Paranormal Activity movie came out, we saw it in Culver City. Culver City is home to some of the most ghetto people on the planet; I heard “talk to the hand” and “get out of there dot com” at least four times, each, through the course of the film.

We saw the second and third in similar theaters, although the fourth is going to be a little more difficult because we’re living in a little more upscale of an area now. As I see it, I have 9 days to find the trashiest and at the same time most popular theater and get our tickets. Halloween-season will be incomplete if I cannot spend two hours watching complete and utter fucking morons scream.

#4 Reruns of The Simpsons

I watch The Simpsons every, single day. I mean that we own the seasons on DVD and every evening I turn it on when I go to bed. I go in chronological order and then when I’m done I just start at the beginning again. Every night, for years, I’ve done this. When I go out of town, I even bring the DVDs along with. I just can’t stop.

What I love the most about it is that I have a Simpsons analogy for just about anything. And I think I enjoy these fictional characters better than any real characters I happen to come across in my daily life.

#5 Listening to my Trailer Trash Mom’s stories

I know, I know … she’s a nightmare and I should stop letting her into my house because all she does is gobble up all our food and steal my stuff, just to return to her family where she spreads lies and rumors and talks mad amounts of shit about me.

But my mom’s train wreck stories are just so good sometimes.

Today she came over and I asked how things were going with her husband in New Mexico, because she hadn’t brought him up even in conversation for quite some time. The last time I heard was about a month ago, she said he had a cold. Well, apparently the cold has lasted for this whole month and now he has gone to the doctor and has some undiagnosable disease. His symptoms? Low grade fever, body aches, fatigue, and an inexplicable desire to do nothing but “lay in bed and fondle himself.”

It was difficult for me to keep a straight face long enough to get out of her eyesight on that one.

What are your guilty pleasures, faithful blog followers? Making sweet, sweet love on the beach while the waves roll over your supple yet flabby body? Bathing with your hamsters? Licking the oil off your plate after a nice meal of eggs and grits? Come on … dish it.