I looked out the window by the front door and saw two twentyish super cute gals. One was texting on her pink iphone and I couldn’t see the face of the other one. I thought it might be our single female next door neighbor. I thought maybe she was locked out of her house, or something. So I opened the door, with The King behind me.

The girl who’s face I couldn’t see saw me and CLEARLY looked freaked. She was all “we have the wrong house”.

“Yeah you do.”

And they turned and walked away. And The King and I walked back upstairs to bed.

As if this isn’t odd enough there is a twist to this story. A huge twist.

One of the girls had a live parrot on her shoulder.

A PARROT.

ON HER SHOULDER!

*

So many questions.

First off, our house looks very different from any house on our block. There is no mistaking our house for another house. No way. And yet, how did they mistake our house for someone else’s house?

Didn’t they notice our two cars in the driveway and realize they weren’t cars that belonged to friends of theirs?

Why didn’t they think anything of the fact that it probably took The King and I a couple of minutes to actually get to the door to open it? This gave them plenty of time to figure out they were at the wrong house.

Who rings the door bell of a completely dark house at 11:45? Even if you think you know the person?

Could this be a Craigslist Escort ad gone bad and how does the parrot play into that scenario?

The King and I sat in bed trying to figure this out for way too long. We just couldn’t get what the angle was on this. Were they scoping out our house to rob it later? Were they running a screen for someone else to sneak in the garage and steal all of The King’s tools?

Seriously…it’s crazy!!!

Mostly because they were two super cute and totally normal looking girls.

But really mostly because there was the whole “live parrot on her shoulder” element.

So tell me, seriously, what do you think this was all about?

*The girl was much cuter then this lady (although not as happy looking). And she wasn’t wearing a Bird Shoulder Cape that is available for purchase for a mere $16.99.

You know how our mom’s always told us, “if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all!”?

Yeah well, I’m sort of like that with secrets.  It can be hard for me to keep a secret.  So when I have a really juicy one I just try to keep my mouth shut.

Completely.

Basically I haven’t talked to too many people in the last few months.  I’m sure all my friends on the internet and IRL hate me.  It’s just that I’ve got a juicy secret.

We’re buying a second car.

Oh yes, The King family which has been a one-car-family for the last ten years is stepping it up a notch.  This is also the family that set a New Years Resolution to drive the one car less this year and try to walk or take the bus as much as possible.

Um yeah, we’re totally going to help add to the death of the environment with a second car.

And an SUV at that.

We hate to do it, but we have to.

We must succumb.

You see, there is absolutely no way to fit two car seats in our current car.

And come sometime in August we’re gonna need room for Rerun’s car seat.

• using self tanners (”it messes up my hands”)
• how they vote on American Idol (”the girls were on last night”)
• Gossip Girl (”its easy to love to hate it”) (”you can’t DVR it or you won’t be able to talk to your friends about it on Tuesday!”)
• not being into Chantel anymore (an ex-girlfriend?) (”She’s so last month.”)
• shaving their balls (”i just take my razor in the shower and do it at the gym.  it’s saves time.”)

Although I was a mere 2 inches in front of them, they must have thought I was far enough away and wouldn’t hear them.

IT WAS NOT FAR ENOUGH AWAY.  And I did hear them.

I had no idea that hott guys talked this way.   To be honest, I’m a little disappointed.

Needless to say, I got very, very tan that summer (and I read quite a few books). No question in my mind that summer was the tannest I’ve ever been. I didn’t even get that tan last summer while vacationing at the beaches in Spain.

I reached my tanning pinnacle at the ripe young age of 18.

Last Saturday I noticed that The King’s face and arms were looking very tan. I realized just how tan he was when he hopped in the shower with me.

(You must remember that our Master Bathroom has more of a “shower room” then just a tub/shower combo. Because of this, we end up taking showers at the same time a lot.)

(Am I justifying why I took a shower with my own husband?)

(Note to the internet: I have seen The King naked.)

(And I liked it.)

Anyway, I noticed that The King was very, very tan. I was shocked at how tan he was, especially standing near my pale skin. I also noticed that he had no tan lines.

No.Tan.Lines.

“Hey, you don’t have any tan lines.”

“I know.”

“How in the heck did you get so tan without any lines?”

“After I got laid off I quickly noticed that all of our neighbors are at work during the day.”

“So?”

“So, I decided it was safe to lay out on our deck naked.”

“NAKED? ON OUR DECK? YOU’LL GET ARRESTED FOR THAT!”

“Nobody can see. I have it all figured out. I know exactly where to position myself so that you can’t see me from any angle.”

All I could do was shake my head at my recently unemployed husband.

Later that day he took me out to our deck to show me his set up for lying out and working on his tan. And you know what, he’s right, nobody could see him out there…naked.

The King has reached his tanning pinnacle at the ripe age of 37. And I love him even more for it.

**we are not officially called “Mormons”. That’s just what everyone else knows us by. We referred to ourselves as “LDS”. I hope this won’t confuse you.**

Because I know that members of the LDS church are totally your normal run of the mill people, I assume The World knows that too.

Newflash: The World thinks Mormons are wacky.

They think we look like this:

Or even this:

I forget that The World doesn’t know we are just like everyone else. Two things happened last week to remind me of what The World thinks of me and the rest of my religion. And I can’t stop thinking about them.

The first thing happened last Friday afternoon. I was perusing the interweb, as I oft do, and I found myself in the Twitter Time Suck (as I oft do). Someone I follow on Twitter (who is not LDS) just happened to be in Utah for work and needed something fun to do in Salt Lake City for the evening. I quickly replied back to them and suggested they check out Temple Square, which is located in the middle of Salt Lake City. I didn’t tell them they had to join the LDS Church, nor did I preach anything about my faith. I simply suggested they visit a very beautiful and popular “tourist attraction”.

I was curious what other people on Twitter were suggesting this person do in Utah, so I checked out the other replies.

While reading through them, I’m pretty sure I started to cry. There were no mentions of the beautiful mountains in Utah, the wonderful people, the diverse landscape, the many museums, the Olympic venues, the ski resorts, or the historic landmarks. Instead people suggested comments that degraded the prominent religion in Utah. You know, the members of the LDS Church.

You know…ME!

Of course I felt like they were degrading me, personally. I realized that while I believed that The World knew a little something about my religion, they really don’t know anything.

Most comments on this Twitter feed referred to Mormons as being polygamist or said something about “Big Love” or how they don’t drink alcohol, so they must be idiots. This floored me. I mean, totally floored me. TOTALLY.

For the record, members of the LDS Church are not even sort of polygamist. Seriously. I have never known a polygamist. EVER. The members of the LDS church think polygamist are just as unusual as The World does. I can count on one hand the number of polygamist I’ve ever witnessed in Utah. I don’t know anyone that wears the type of clothes that polygamist typically wear. While we do wear dresses to church on Sunday, our dresses typically look like THIS. (Seriously, most LDS ladies my age are sassy dressers.)

So, to set the record straight….members of the LDS church (the Mormons) are NOT polygamist. We don’t associate with polygamist. We don’t condone polygamy. We don’t dress like the stereotypical polygamist. My husband does not “rule” over me. We are equal, as a couple, as heads of the family, and before God.

———-

The second thing that happened to me happened, again, last Friday.

The King, Babboo and I headed to a local street fair in the evening to see Mudhoney perform. (MUDHONEY!) We were meeting up with some friends who, as it happens, are not members of our faith. The wife is a very devout Catholic. (She’s only missed weekly mass five times in her entire life. FIVE TIMES!) This couple knows we are members of the LDS Church and that we’re very involved in our Church. As we were walking around the street fair and checking out the food (elephant ears!) we noticed another family from our church congregation. We introduced our friends to the other Mormons and we all ended up hanging out together. As we walked some more, we came across yet another family we knew from church. Again, introductions were made and this new family joined our group.

Again, we ran into a family from church. And again, and again.

Eventually the husband of our (non-Mormon) friends whispered to me, “Holy crap. The Mormons are taking over! You guys are everywhere.”

He was just kidding around, so we both laughed and kept walking around the fair.

This same friend whispered to me again later, “You know, you’d never know that any these people are Mormons! You guys all look so…normal.”

“What do you mean that we look ‘normal’?”

“You just all look so normal.”

I looked at him with a skeptical face and realized that he also thought Mormons look “different” from The World.

Hum.

I assured him that we are just like everyone else. We have jobs and families and houses and cars and go to concerts and read books and watch movies and have sex and eat food. Just like everyone else.

You’d never recognize a member of the LDS church if you passed one on the street. We don’t look any different then you do. (Except maybe extra cool. And super awesome.)

I want people to get to know me, and like me, and then realize I’m a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Later-day Saints and that, “Hey, those Mormons are pretty darn cool!”

So pass it on, Mormons Rule!