I've got a case of pregnancy brain

This is how I feel.

You guys, I swear, if I could bottle up pregnancy hormones and get Cathy to review them on Booze Day Tuesday, every distillery, brewery and other booze making establishment would go out of business and I'd get that cool billion I've always dreamed of because pregnancy hormones cause a drunk feeling that really can't occur any other way.

I mean, y'all know my husband. He buys RC hummers. He obsessive compulsively locks his car. He makes ridiculous comments during the Bachelorette. He is basically silly all day, every day but even he calls me out on my ridiculousness when I have that perfect combination of sleepiness and being pregnant that makes me feel like I've tied one on. Besides the fact that it's horrible for your growing child and you shouldn't do it, there's a reason pregnant women shouldn't drink and that's the fact that we would act so insane and uncontrollable even that one girl who always gets drunk and cries at parties will say "what's with that hot mess? she needs to lay off the sauce, pronto!"

While I didn't realize how drunk they would make me feel, preg hormones also make me incredibly forgetful. I'd heard of this pregnancy phenomenon but I was all, MALARKEY there is no such thing! My brain was, is and forever will be sharp as a tack! Oh, how wrong I was. Two stories to demonstrate:

• We were filling out our registry info at Target one Saturday night after a pretty long, intense nap. I typed in my name and then our house number: 4748. Hubby looked at me and said, "really? You know that's not right." I tried again. 5758. He looked shocked and asked me to try again. People, we've lived in this house a year now. I know my house number, but for some reason, that night I couldn't think of it. He kindly filled me in and then promptly put his head in his hands and walked to the bench when I pulled WV from the list of states to complete our address. WE HAVEN'T LIVED IN WV FOR GOING ON 3 YEARS. 
• I was in the onesie bathroom at work, the one where people always leave their 'fragrance' behind even though there is a larger bathroom down the hall with better ventilation BUT I DIGRESS (because this bitter pill is getting hard to swallow). I washed my hands and turned toward the paper towel dispenser to pull out a sheet. It was the kind that you just pull to advance to the next towel (no cranks or buttons). No paper to pull. I thought to myself, hmm, must have gotten new paper towel dispensers with cranks. No cranks. I panicked and wiped my wet, clean hands on my jeans, then walked out, hoping another dispenser would be working. The dispenser next to the sink didn't have a crank either. What the? OH, it's an automatic dispenser..no cranks or pulling needed, just the wave of my hot little hand. Mercy.

Hubby has gotten used to my bewildered looks on the daily, inability to remember simple tasks and other foibles but thankfully I only have 15 more weeks until my brain begins to function again.

Have you ever forgotten your own address? Did you have preg brain? Do you have preg brain right now? Do you know what blog you're reading? Do you remember how awesome the show Friends was, cause I'm sort of re-obsessed right now.

image via

Another good idea, another chance for you to STEAL IT

Ok, seriously folks, I'm getting ready to lay another great idea up in this piece and it's going to explode with awesomeness like a stick of dynamite, so please be prepared. I know we all sort of let our guards down on Fridays so this is just a warning.

Yesterday I talked about my idea for ghost tours, which won't work because I'm lazy and not in a place where people would fall for that take advantage of such an opportunity. But I do live in a college town. That means we have lots of hungry, poor and sometimes drunk college students. When we moved here from WV, we noticed a real lack of hot dog eatery establishments. WV is like, hot dog capital of the world. These poor students just have to forgo the taste of mystery meat, covered in sauce, wrapped in a deliciously steamed bun? It's just wrong.

Thus a dream was dreamed. A dream of our very own hot dog cart.

Hot dogs are, like, the cheapest thing to fix. That's why there are twice as many hot dogs as hamburgers at cookouts -- look next time, it's a fact.

Hot Dog Cart

 First we'd have to buy a hot dog cart. This is by far the biggest expense, but also will pay for itself. There's some term in economics for that, I think, but guess who doesn't know much about economics? Anyway. I browsed Ebay and found this lovely cart for only $400. And it's nostalgic. You know what students love even more than cheap stuff? Kitsch.

Even the seller knows what a gem he's got on his hands:
"Theres [sic] nothing like this full-service pushcart to deliver nostalgic charm and modern convenience," he proudly proclaims. That's correct sir, NOTHING like it.




The cart comes with  a hot dog roller, a two lidded steaming/warming trays, a beverage cooler, a service shelf and three inserts "for condiments such as chili and sauerkraut."

Then we go on to the basics of any good hot dog business. I just spent an hour researching how to buy wholesale hot dogs and finally found them (Bee Tee Double You, if you want to find wholesale hot dogs on Google, you have to use the keyword "bulk foods, hot dogs"). I can get some Oscar Mayer's, a case of 330, for $110. Now that I'm thinking it through, maybe bulk hot dogs aren't a good idea, as I have no space to keep them. Other than my fridge. Can you imagine if somebody came over and looked in my fridge and they were all, oh, so you like hot dogs? Awkward. So if worst comes to worst, I'll just buy some at Walmart for 99 cents for 12. Buns are 89 cents for 8. *high  quality* is what we'll be known for.

Then there are a whole bunch more variables, like how much mustard costs, if I'll be serving relish or sauerkraut, and how many hot dogs we'll really need. And I dont' have time for all that right now, so I'll get to the really brillant part: Location, location, location.

During regular school days through the semester, from 11 till 2, we'll push that little bad boy around trolling from customers. What more perfect lunch can you think of for rushed, poor students? So that's 3 hours out of the day. Then when the sun sets, our hot dog cart will become a beacon for drunk bar flies. Picture if you will: 3 a.m. You've been dancing and drinking and it's time to go home. Nobody is sober enough to drive to Taco Bell and nothing else is open. Suddenly, like an angel made out of streel, plastic and animal byproducts, the hot dog cart appears, waiting to satisfy the cravings of wasted 20 year olds. I mean it's like a money pit waiting to open up. So 2 till 3:30 we'll work the night shift.

We'll name is something  University of Florida-y, like Swamp Dogs or something vaguely sexual like Hot Buns & Wieners, Inc. Then we'll become millionaires.

On my last blog, Ally left the following comment:

My big idea was... to serve frozen/umbrella drinks from the ice cream truck. I mean, no ice cream...just alcoholic beverages. How stellar is that?? I love to drive and I love to watch drunk people so if I could make a profit off of them, all the better! All I need is a driver's license (check) and a liquor license (if drinking made it so, I would totally have that one, too). I think we could be on to something. But if I see a drink truck driving around, you'll be the first person I'll be looking at. 

Now I'm thinking, perfect. This is the best duo ever. We'll park the hot dog cart right next to the ice cream truck that sells liquor and make money off the kids who just aren't ready to stop partying quite yet, but also need a snack break.

Speaking of breaks, if you steal our ideas, we'll break your toes.

What's your best 'brilliant' idea?

Don't steal my idea!!!

Do you ever wish you were somebody like, say, the guy who invented Facebook? I mean he came up with some lame idea to basically stalk girls that he went to school with and now he's a gazillionaire.

Or the coffee kiosk we saw on the Travel Channel show XTREME COFFEE SHOPS where girls serve you coffee dressed in nothing but their underpants. The owner can't believe how successful it's been (as she rolls around in piles of money). One girl, who was wearing a cowboy hat, leather chaps and a cow print bikini, said she is shocked that people just keep coming back. And you guys, the shop is literally in a shed. A shed you can buy and build yourself on some random weekend.

Occasionally I'll come up with an idea, or Hubby and I will come up with an idea together, and think, if only we could make this happen, we'd so make a million dollars. I want to share some ideas with you guys but I have already done the poor man's copyright with them so don't even think about stealing them, and if you do I will hunt you down and then make you be a contestant on the Bachelor. Serious as a heart attack, folks.

Ghost Tours

Spend any time in a tourist town and you'll see one of these ghost tours popping up. Those places are *lousy* with ghost tours already, and they are all more or less the same, but to make ours even better, we came up with the following ideas:

1. Sell bottled water for 75 cents instead of $1 like everybody else.
2. Sell things like "authentic Civil War style bullets" or "rocks like the ones the lady fell into when she jumped". 
3. Sell small flashlights or candles. Oriental Trading Company sells them for $5 per dozen -- that's 41 cents per flashlight. We'll sell them for $1 each and offer it at the beginning of each tour.

We've been on a metric crap ton of ghost tours in our day because we're tremendous suckers and have never once seen a ghost. I mean, hell, half the time you just wander aimlessly listening to ghost stories. We can get those off the internet or from a book.

So let's break it down.

Our costs:

• learning ghost stories from the internet or checking out a book from the library: FREE
• Bottled water: $6 per 24 pack= $6
• Mini-flashlights: $5 per doze x two dozen = $10
• Our time: FREE

Gross profit:

• We'll charge $7 per person x 15 people per group = $105
• Two groups = $210
• Four nights per week = $840

Net profit:

• Supplies = $64 per week
• Profit = $840

TOTAL:  $776 per week
Yearly total: $40,352

The bonus? Each tour lasts 2 hours, so you're only working 4 hours a day for 4 days MINIMUM. I'm just guessing that you'll only be able to get big crowds on the weekends (which is including Thursdays). Add a one tour a day for the rest of the week and you've got at least a couple extra hundred.

Problems with this plan:

• Me no live in a tourist town.
• I'm sort of lazy and like to be in my PJs after 5 pm.

Maybe it can be some creepy, "people who died in their sleep and are now ghosts" tour and PJs will be my costume.

I've got a million more...I'll share another one tomorrow.