I was at the grocery store (as I tend to be) and when I tried to get out of the car it was locked. That in itself is no big deal. I’ve also tried to get out of the car with my seatbelt on. I know how to fix the problem, one just unlocks the door to exit. Except in this case the door locked again before I had a chance to open it.

Then it locked on me again. And again.

A ha! I thought to myself. I must be mashing the lock button on my key fob. But I wasn’t. My keys were hanging off of one finger, no buttons were touching anything.

So I tried to manually unlock the car as if it were the ’90s.

But my car locked itself again.

It couldn’t be the safety feature that won’t let you lock your keys in the car because 1) I’ve already done that in this car and 2) I had already established that the keys we no longer in the ignition.

Then it locked itself again. And again.

And this is when I began to suspect the supernatural or possibly Ashton Kutcher.

But as much as I hate all practical jokes and Punk’d in particular, this one was too stupid too make it through even the least rigorous screening process. Plus I’ve never been in a boy band.

So this left me with two options – a poltergeist or an electrical problem.

On one hand this could cost me a lot of money. On the other hand my car might be haunted*. I don’t like either of these options.

What I do like though is that I think I finally have an excuse to call in to Car Talk.

* * *

Ghosts are REAL, Mike. Ghosts are real.

* * *

Remind me sometime to tell you why White thinks it might be the ghost of  former United Nations Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld.

I said: “Yes. This might sound strange, but I am looking for the Wienermobile.”

All three of us stifled back some laughter and he said “Actually, I know exactly what you are talking about and it was parked out front earlier.”

I was excited. When I woke up that morning I saw this from my hotel room window.

THE WIENERMOBILE!

I know. It is kind of stupid, but did you know that they don’t just let anybody ride in The Wienermobile? I know this because the commoners who were walking by (and by commoners I mean people who weren’t at my conference) weren’t allowed on. But the wiener lady let Laurie and I get into the giant hot dog!

We’re laughing like that because the wiener lady would not stop saying things like “Does one of you want to sit shot bun?” and “We’re all wieners” and “It is bunderful.”

Really. She did. And she did it deadpan.

And she didn’t stop as we drove around Houston.

To be frank with you it was fairly surreal.

The wiener lady gave me these stickers. That said “I tweeted from the Wienermobile”.

So I did.

And it was good.

When we got back to the hotel we ran into Tanis and took some more pictures because 1) It was a blogging conference and that is what we do and 2) IT WAS THE FUCKING WIENERMOBILE!

You would think that that would be the end of my story, but you would be wrong.

When I got back to The Four Seasons I ran into my new friend Paula who had hours earlier uncovered a Wienermobile conspiracy! Paula had been for a wiener  ride (not a euphemism) earlier and she asked the wiener guy about the Wienermobile that crashed into a house in Wisconsin last July. He denied that it was a crash and instead the weenie driver backed up under somebody’s porch and got stuck, but FOX News reported the driver lost control.

And the video is gone.

Paula is a self-proclaimed sausage expert. I’m not kidding. She had almost as many sausage related anecdotes as the wiener girl had hot dog puns (or hot dog buns if you will). Cover up? Conspiracy? Story nobody cares about? You be the judge.

Either way, I got to ride in the Wienermobile.

Feel free to play along.

Really, they’re back.

And this time they like Beck.

Let me explain.

I had an incident about two years ago when my tv would just turn off all by itself.  I blamed paranormal activity (not the movie, but the phenomenon). That all stopped when we got a new tv.

Coincidence? Probably not, but you never know.

Yesterday my computer started playing music when nobody was in the living room.

Honestly, I didn’t think a thing of it. You see, my husband downloaded this ap for his iPhone that makes his cell phone act as a remote for our iTunes. Usually he uses this function either to put on some music while we are having a nice family dinner or to torture me by putting on really shitty music from another room.*

Then I heard Gabe tell the kids “I think Mommy is playing a joke on us with her iPhone”.

But it wasn’t me. I was in the kitchen doing dishes.

It was strange, but I let it go.

Then today I came home from the grocery store to an empty house.

The empty house was listening to Beck.

I know for sure I didn’t leave any music playing when I left the house. In fact, I checked every light, both computers and the coffee pot before I left the house.

What do I make of this?

I figure there are several options:

1) I have a poltergeist.

2) My cats love Beck and figured out how to use iTunes. Apple software is very intuitive.

3) I have a stowaway – possibly hiding in a pile of laundry.

4) There is a disturbance in the force.

5) A glitch in the Matrix?**

6) I accidentally mashed a whole bunch of buttons and set my computer to open iTunes and play something of its choosing at random intervals.

I don’t know. Pick whatever sounds reasonable to you. For now I’m going with the poltergeist.

* Most often “Jeanny” by Falco which is one of the worst songs ever written in my humble opinion.
**  Yes, I know 4 and 5 are basically the same joke but I couldn’t decide.

Why must you hate?

Is this because I called you the lower house? I want you to know I didn’t make that up as an insult. They taught me that in school.

And I don’t know what you heard, but what I said was that we should legalize slots.

I have a theory about cheese powder having addictive properties akin to heroin.

You think I am crazy.

I give you the following examples:

Cheetohs

Doritos

Ritz Toasted Chips, Dairyland Cheddar Flavor

Planters Cheez Blass (their spelling, not mine)

I challenge you to eat one of any of the above, then wait two full minutes and eat two more of them.

Then stop eating them.

There is no way you can stop after that. There are only three things that can stop the madness.

1) Horrible stomach ache.

2) You can run out. You have no choice but to stop, and you feel to sick to drive to the store to buy more.

3) You are in the presence of another adult who calls you out. “Are you seriously going to eat that entire bag of Doritos?”

__

In related news, I have a horrible stomace ache.