Overreaction [Trust Me Tuesday]

There once was a girl named Brittany, me, who was very jumpy and easy to scare. (Just to clarify, I still am that way.) This made it very enticing for people, especially males, to sneak up on or startle her because it is practically guaranteed a good, blood-curtling scream will be their reward. Unfortunately, this isn't always the best thing for Brittany's health.

Take this story for example.

Back when I was cool and working as a Microbiologist, I was sitting in the computer chair with my back to the door to the lab, talking with George, the also cool intern. I don't have any recollection of what we were talking about, probably Community, since that is what we always talked about.

Anyway, Ben, who worked as a Formulator, loved to scare me. I'm pretty sure that it was one of his favorite hobbies and past-times. He, very sneakily, walked through the lab door and crept up behind me.

Let me just clarify that George knew that a scare was imminent and he did not do his duty and warn me! I may or may not still be a little bitter about it.

Well, Ben gets right behind the chair, leans over, and just says, "Boo." right into my left ear.

I. Freaked. Out.

Screamed.

Gasped.

And flailed.

In an attempt to get myself away from my attacker, I flung my body to the right and tried to counterbalance the weight shift by swinging my legs to the left. What I failed to realize was that my legs were right underneath the counter. When they swung up they whacked the underside of the counter, very hard.

I was in immediate pain and my heart was still racing. Naturally, all Ben and George could do was laugh. Of course I laughed too because, I mean, who couldn't laugh at how outrageously ridiculous my reaction was.

If you look closely, you can see where my leg met the counter.

As you can see I ended up duct taping an ice pack to my leg so that I didn't have to hold it and try and work. Luckily, I wore purple that day and the duct tape didn't clash with my outfit! Either way, I still had a nice sized welt. 

So, my advice to you is to be more like a ninja and less like a spaz. Trust me, ninjas probably don't get startled like that and end up with bruises like mine. 

Mac and Cheese Mayhem [Trust Me Tuesday]

[Trust Me Tuesday] I'll share a little blurp from my life so, that you lovely people, can learn from my mistakes. That is, if you trust me.

So, my mom went grocery shopping and she bought me Easy Mac, the character version, because she loves me. And character mac-n-cheese is my favorite. It was the Monsters Inc. kind.

Naturally, I wanted to take it with me to work for lunch, because I knew it would be delicious. So, I did. And all day, I was very excited about getting to eat these little monsters covered in delicious, fake, powdered cheese.

11:30 rolls around, I clock out and head straight for the deliciousness that is my lunch. There was a line for the microwaves and I was unwilling to wait to devour my mac-n-cheese. A brilliant idea was born in my mind.... "Just use the hot water from the water dispenser, like when you brought cup of noodles for lunch!!" I thought.

I speed walked (proper past tense?) toward said water dispenser and filled my cup, precisely to the line, with piping, hot water. I carefully carried my precious treasure back to the break area, and left it on the table for 3 minutes to let Mike and Sully cook to perfection.

3 long minutes went by and I poured in my cheese powder and mixed. The package said that it would take a minute for it to thicken, so I stirred some more.

I finished stirring and this is what I was left with?

Mac-n-cheese Soup.

I'm sure you can imagine my heartbreak. Just think about something you've wanted really bad. And just when it was within your reach, someone snatched it away and gave you some unfortunate, ruined version of it. That about sums up how I felt.

I tried eating it. But, it just tasted like what I would think eating noodles out of the pot without draining them first would be like.

My coworkers discussed ways I could make it better, and insisted I microwave it to allow the excess water to evaporate. This went on for about 10 minutes, when I finally caved and let them nuke it for a couple minutes.

You see, I was hesitant to allow them to do this because I knew that the noodles would turn to mush if they were cooked any longer.

And I was right.

My precious, little monsters had completely decomposed and I was left with a yellow/orange-ish, giant, booger-esk mess.

After both Kelsey and Allana had tasted it, I decided I would give it a shot.

Lets just go with.. I wish I hadn't.

So, trust me, follow the package instructions when cooking your Easy-Mac Character Mac-n-Cheese. Use the microwave. Your life will be better because of it.

The DVD Whisperer

Today, at work, I was preparing to send out an order of "Ultimate Trucker" DVDs. 

Background information: When we are preparing to send out DVDs, we have to screen them to make sure all the stickers are right, that the wrapping is right and that the DVDs aren't loose inside of their cases. 

I did my standard "look at front, flip, look at back, shake" to check for stickers, wrapping and loose DVDs and kept getting DVD after DVD that was loose inside of its case. Typically, when a DVD is loose this results in us having to unwrap the DVD, fix it, and run it through the re-wrap machine. Its a Wednesday; I didn't want to have to go through all of that to fix these DVDs. 

You know those snow globe-esk games you play? With the golf ball and the tee? And you have to flip the globe just right to land the ball on top? Well, imagine doing that, but with a DVD inside of its case. 

This is how it is done. 

Step 1: Lightly shake DVD 

Step 2: Press down in center of case to see if you have aligned it properly 

Step 3: Celebrate, or Repeat Steps 1-2 

Long story short, in a matter of minutes I had returned 7 DVDs to their proper holding spaces inside of their respective cases. (It really is a lot cooler than it sounds.) One of my coworkers was watching me and she was really impressed with my DVD fixing abilities. She'd been working there for seven years and had never seen anyone do that before! (I'm pretty sure most people just aren't as determined as me to try and take the easy way out.) 

So, now I am lovingly referred to as... The DVD Whisperer. 

Guess who's back, back again.

Brittany's back, tell a friend! 

Time to welcome me back blogging world! Hopefully, this time I'll stick around longer than I have in times past. I have a bad habit of starting a blog, only to post a few times and never return. So, here is to turning over a new leaf and sharing my hilarious life with all of you wonderful people (and by people I am probably just referring to my cousin, Hailey, because she'll likely be the only one reading this). 

This is me.

Brittany Nicole Cox, scientist and photographer. Air Force blood runs thick in my veins. I would call myself a total crack up. Stubborn, spontaneous and silly. 

Here is my life story in the world's tiniest nutshell. 

Born and raised moving all over the continental US, loved it! Graduated from high school, went up to college at BYU-I studying microbiology and photography, graduated. Worked full time as a microbiologist (almost two years) until leaving to serve as a full-time missionary in the Philippines. Currently working at a warehouse, literally peeling stickers off of old DVDs and putting new stickers onto the same DVDs. 

My life is kind of funny that way. A question you may be asking, one that I ask myself nearly every day I show up for work, WHAT IN THE HECK IS A COLLEGE GRADUATE DOING AT A DVD WAREHOUSE?! I did not put all that blood, sweat and tears into my school work to end up staring at creepy Halloween DVDs all day. Well, lemme tell you, when I was in the Philippines, my insides decided they wanted to become my outsides and I was eaten away by some bacteria. (Ironic, isn't it, that the microbiologist's doom was a bacteria?)  I was medically released and ended up back under my parent's roof. (There are a few perks to that, I suppose.) Anyway, since I quit my job to leave, I didn't have one to come back to and am stuck dealing with DVDs all day, ere'day. (In all honesty, I am glad to have any job but I am also glad that hopefully this job is fairly temporary.)

And so, here, on my little piece of webspace, I will share with the world the funny happenings of my ever increasingly hilarious life. I am hoping that someone, somewhere (again, probably Hailey) gets a kick out of this, because I sure think it's funny!