The Junk Drawer

These are trying times. Kathy has no words. A whopping ten drafts in her queue and nothing worthy of posting.

I think if I don’t post something today, nothing will ever get posted again, the Junk Drawer will close shop and you guys will loiter outside wondering what the hell happened.

I have to get something on the page to kick start me out of this funk I’m in.

Come back in a couple days if this post bores you to tears. I’m about to tell you about my weekend:

1. I fell asleep on the couch at 5PM yesterday and awoke at 8PM thinking it was the next day already. I slept hard. I even had full, movie-length dreams. In one of them, I was standing in a reception line at a political function, holding hands with Henry Kissinger. Discuss.

2. I worked all day Saturday, brought a lunch, but ate it before 10AM. So the rest of the day I took from the other junk drawer in my life and gave myself a headache, a stomachache and left work on such a sugar high I don’t remember how I got home.

3. My husband cleaned the bathrooms, God bless him, but broke the toilet seat off one of the toilets. How is this possible? Broke an entire toilet seat off its hinges? Men, if you’re going to help clean the house, don’t do it in the manner you would, say, play football. Cleaning a toilet needn’t be a race nor a destructive act. It just needs to be wiped down — gently.

4. In the process of preparing to send DrowseyMonkey her prize magnet for having the fattest head, I got sidetracked researching whether I can mail it with U.S. postage or if I have to take it to the post office to get international postage put on it. I tried Googling for the answer to this simple question, but could not find a satisfactory one. I’m too embarrassed to ask Drowsey, so I’ll just head to the post office tomorrow where I’m sure a clerk there will tell me what a moron I am.

5. I didn’t have the energy to fix something that’s been bugging me for a month. Our wall clock is stuck at 4 o’clock. We don’t know why because the batteries are fine. The pendulum below the clock face continues to swing to and fro. I meant to check on why it’s malfunctioning, but now I’m getting really used to it being 4 o’clock all the time. Four happens to be my favorite number, so I’m keeping it.

6. Since I took such a long nap yesterday, I couldn’t get to sleep until midnight last night. But my body always, always gets up between 4AM-5AM, which means I’m running on fumes right now. I’m sorry. This is the kind of post you get on fumes.

Forgive me for having to post such lame material, but this was the prescription for funkitis and it had to be done. Pray I’m funkless tomorrow.

Night.

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I had a massive brain fart yesterday. I completely and totally forgot my blog password. In my defense, it’s the most awesome password in the history of complex, deadbolt, Fort Knox passwords.

It’s a beautiful thing, my password. Piece of art, actually.

It has a mixture of upper and lower case letters, numbers, special characters and at no point among the 13 characters exists any word in any language. It took me days to be able to enter it without thinking.

The problem with my password is that I only know the whole thing if I can get going on the first character. And that was my problem yesterday. I failed on take-off.

I couldn’t remember if the first letter was capitalized or not. Then I got all messed up on the following two because I wasn’t sure of the first. By the fifth character, I was way off the tracks and I knew it.

Come on, Kathy. You can do this.

Start over. Stop sweating. Think. But don’t over-think! Look at the keyboard. Don’t look at the keyboard! Find your center. Ooom, ooom.

It took me almost a minute to get it right. In password-remembering time, that’s an eternity. It bothered me a lot that I struggled. Why did I suddenly forget it after months of using it without a problem?

Maybe it means it’s time to change it to something like, oh I don’t know… password? What was I thinking using one so difficult at my age? Everyone knows the brain can only hold so much information. Critical stuff like word-for-word dialogue from every Brady Bunch episode, my high school locker combination, and the name of the girl in 4th grade who called me fat once.

That’s it. This brain’s full. I need a new one.

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Some days I think I could be a vegetarian.

But here’s the thing. I loves me a good burger. What makes it easy to eat meat is that it doesn’t still look like the body part it came from, unless I’m eating Thanksgiving turkey, and then I try to ignore that it’s missing its head.

The most disgusting thing I’ve eaten that still looked like where it came from was this:

Italian tripe

Beef tripe is usually made from the first three stomachs of a cow, the rumen (blanket/flat/smooth tripe), the reticulum (honeycomb and pocket tripe), and the omasum (book/bible/leaf tripe).

I ate the reticulum. Sounds kinda like “rectum,” doesn’t it? 

I found myself presented with a plate full of the above “I’ll be throwing this up later” delicacy once when my high school boyfriend took me to dinner at his grandmother’s.

His was an old world Italian family where dinners were hours-long events to be taken very seriously. If something was served to you, no matter how revolting it looked, you respectfully ate it, smiled, and asked for more.

If I recall correctly, the vomit-inducing tripe was served to me in a soup. When I took my first helping, I was appalled. Each honeycomb sheet looked like bubble wrap after the bubbles were popped. It was pale in color and resembled something you might peel of your shoes if you should happen to walk through a garbage dump.

I couldn’t imagine eating this mess, but I really had no choice. A lot of love went into making this meal and I’m not sure I would have been allowed to leave if I didn’t at least try it.

And so I did.

I don’t remember the swallowing part; I only remember the chewing. I could have saved myself a lot of time and trauma if I’d swallowed the pieces whole because it took ten minutes to chew through the stuff. Essentially, I ate a bowl of rubber bands.

One by one, the sheets went down. Imagining I was eating food instead of an office supply, I slowly worked my way to the bottom of the bowl. I was careful to pace myself so that I didn’t finish too quickly, as that would only invite the question “Kathy, would you like some more?” Oh, no. Please, God. No.

To this day, I can’t believe I ate what I ate and have only the occasional nightmare about it. Give me another part of the cow — any other part — and I’m fine. Impossible-to-chew, sheets of skin-like stomach matter? No, thanks. I think I’ll pass.

So, what’s the most disgusting thing you’ve ever eaten?

——

It’s chow time over at Humor-Blogs.

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Notice: This post has been edited since its original publish date. I removed the link to the website in question because the person who took my material wrote me last night, made her site private and hopefully removed my stuff. I can’t prove it, since the site is no longer available to the viewing public, but I’m giving her the benefit of the doubt.

However, I’m leaving this post otherwise intact to remind everyone to periodically check for stolen material. Use Copyscape.com, which is free and will scour the web for places where your material has been republished.

Here is my edited post:

This is going to be one mean, angry post.

There is a woman, a fraud, who is posting my blog material to her Xanga website: [LINK REMOVED]

You’ll see on the first page my bathroom story from the other day. If you scroll to the bottom and click through “Next 5,” (bottom right) you’ll see more stories I’ve written (plastic bag story, First Holy Communion, and so on and so on).

She posted no less than ten of my blog posts, some in their entirety, some not, and some edited to make it look like those were her experiences. I also recognize some of my friends’ blog posts there. I’m disgusted and frustrated.

I’ve written her directly, posted to her guestbook, commented on each of the stolen articles and asked her to remove them immediately. I also submitted an email to Xanga to report the violation of their Terms of Use. Is there anything else you guys suggest I do?

What’s upsetting me the most is that she’s getting tons of comments on those posts from people who think she wrote them. As a writer, this is a most bizarre feeling. To have over 30 people comment to her about what a great story she wrote is extraordinarily painful.

It makes me want to give up blogging if people are blatantly stealing my content and getting away with it. This isn’t the first time it’s happened. I managed to get a MySpace page to “go dark” because I outed another thief.

Please, please, please do not tell me I should be flattered. I am not. I am fuming. Tell me something to make me feel better, and if you have any other advice for me, I’m listening.

—-

Fellow humor bloggers, you might want to see if she stole your stuff, too.

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Back in November, I wrote about a cake I bought from a new bakery in town. I threw it out because it was too dry and the icing looked better than it tasted. I promised I’d give them a second chance and post back about it.

They blew it. Again.

Yesterday after a 45-minute walk with my sister, I thought I’d reward my effort and ruin whatever benefits I gained from exercising by making a return visit to The Dry, Gross Cake Bakery.

Everything looked scrumptious in the case and I ordered three items (pictured above): A Napoleon, a Southwest pizza thing (don’t remember what it was called), and a half-dozen donuts.

The Scorecard:

1. The Napoleon: Not horrible. The cream and flaky pastry part were serviceable, but the icing was overly-sweet and gummy. It may or may not have been fondant, which is a bakery staple for wedding cakes that looks really pretty, but sometimes tastes like crap. Grade: C+

2. The Southwest pizza thing: Bad all around. The bread was rubbery and tasteless. What I remember of the topping was diced tomato, corn and some unidentifiable meat. I thought it had cheese, but no such luck. Had the topping been 100% bacon, I could have salvaged it. Instead, it went in the trash. Grade: D.

3. The donuts. Ah, the donuts. How can a bakery screw up a donut? Donuts are Pastry 101! I should have known something was wrong when the cashier handed me the bag containing a half dozen of the lovelies. They were so heavy, I almost lost my balance. In my opinion, glazed donuts are supposed to be light and airy. Artery-clogging, yes. Deliciously sweet and fattening, yes. Brick-heavy, no.

Here’s a closer look. See that nice sheen? That’s perhaps how a glazed donut should look. Except for one thing. That’s not the glazed side. It’s upside down. Go ahead and click to enlarge, just put your sunglasses on first.

That shininess is caused by deep-fryer fat globules that are soaked all the way through. I wanted a donut, not a blob of lard. It tasted oily, burnt and slightly rancid. And crunchy. Donuts aren’t supposed to be crunchy, right? Grade: A Big Fat Lardy F!

Now look at the bag they came in. The grease reached flood stage about two inches from the bottom of the bag. It’s soaked through solid up to the first crease. If I thought all the grease got sucked out of the donuts, I might actually consider eating the rest. It seems such a waste to throw them out, but that’s exactly what I’m doing.

Here’s a question: It’s obvious I’m never going back to this bakery, but should I let the owners know how dissatisfied I am with their products?

They should know how un-yummy their stuff is, so they could at least fix the donuts. I refuse to believe I’m the only one who finds crunchy, oily donuts unappetizing. I wanted to love the bakery because they’re close to home and I need a new place for all my forbidden food needs.

I don’t want to post the name of the bakery, since I’m not a professional food reviewer (although I should be). If you know me and want to know where it is, give me a buzz. The rest of you don’t have to worry about stumbling into this greasy dive trying to pass as a bakery.

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Now that the weather is getting warmer here in Pa., my sister Marlene and I have begun walking 30-45 minutes a day after work. We weave our way through her neighborhood, happy in the knowledge that spring is right around the corner and that we’re so dedicated to our exercise routine. We’ll be hotties by May, I’m sure of it.

Our walks are always pleasant and uneventful. But last Thursday was different. As we passed a random house, I heard a dog barking nearby and glanced over to find an unleashed one running straight towards me. I prayed there was an invisible fence that would stop it in its tracks. No such luck. He ran out into the street, right up to my knees and thought to himself “Do I take a bite out of the left leg or the right?”

I screamed immediately and Marlene grabbed my hand and pulled hard. “Come over here! Hurry!” My heart was already racing from our aerobic walking, but it was beating even faster at the prospect of having to fend off this creature. Its owners called to it, but it did not respond.

Marlene yanked me along and I never looked back. And then I almost started to cry. Still shaking a block away, I lectured to no one in particular that dog owners need to leash their dogs. Yes, I know most of the time dogs are fuzzy-wuzzy puppy wuppies, but you can never really predict how they’ll act in every situation.

I’m afraid of a lot of strange things, but my fear of dogs is not without reason. When I was a kid we lived near a couple who owned a German Shepherd we’ll call Satan. Our backyards faced each other, split by a small alley. Whenever they couple would come home from somewhere, the dog would freely jump out of the car and start barking at everything. He was as nasty as they come, but its owners loved him. “Oh, he won’t bite,” they would always say.

One day while sledding down the Ice Hill of Death, I made the mistake of heading down just as they were coming home. My timing couldn’t have been worse. Their car door flew open and out came Satan.

All I remember was “Uh-oh. This isn’t good.” I was completely prone. Laying on my back and unable to stop the sled, it wasn’t long before I was met by a face full of glistening, razor-sharp teeth. I’m shaking as I write this. I never felt as defenseless before or since.

I remember screaming as Satan lined up his jaw, ready to take that first succulent bite of me. He went right for the head. Because I was shielding my face with my arm, that was all he could manage to sink his teeth into. Luckily, I was wearing a very thick coat and his teeth only got as far as the inner lining. Thank God for small miracles.

The woman yelled “Oh, it’s OK. You’re OK.” Um, no. I’m not OK. Your dog’s trying to eat my face and would you kindly get him off me? Her husband managed to break things up and I hightailed to my house, tears freezing to my face.

When I got my coat off and showed my parents my arm, we were all relieved there was no blood. He hadn’t punctured the skin, but there were rows of swollen red marks where a clamped jaw had just been. My peace-loving parents contemplated the rest of the night whether they should press charges against the owners, since it could have been much worse and I was still such a mess afterward.

They ultimately decided against it and everyone went on their merry, separate ways. Our families never spoke again, though a few evil eyes were exchanged over the years.

No, I wasn’t seriously hurt and I’m thankful for that. But some thirty years later, I still remember what that bite felt like and I’ll always be fearful of strange dogs, except ridiculously tiny ones that I can swat away like gnats. It’s the big ones that do me in every time. Thanks, Satan. Thanks a lot.

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Last week I wrote about the attempt by the Nielsen Ratings company to get my husband Dave and me to become a Nielsen Family. You can catch up here. The saga may not be over. If it continues, I’m getting a restraining order.

Here’s where the story picks up.

Three days after I contacted the Nielsen representative to tell her for a third time we wanted no part of becoming a Nielsen family, she called and left a message at work. All she said was “I need to confirm one piece of information you gave me, so I can update our records. Please call me.”  I didn’t understand why she needed more information other than us saying no, but I called her back anyway to be polite.

What she wanted to confirm was whether I said there were no children in the house, or if I said there were no children under 18 in the house. I replied, “No children at all in the house.” Fine. End of story. NOT SO FAST. Because Nielsen has such trouble understanding the difference between yes and no, she asked me for a fourth time if we would like to take part in the program.

So here we are again. Her begging me to join and me begging her to stop. I repeated that we want no part of this and that I hoped this would be the last time I’d hear from her. She thanked me for answering the question and we ended the conversation. I hung up wondering if the question she asked was bogus — used only as a way to get me on the phone again. I can’t tell you how much I regret giving her my phone number.

That night I received another letter from Nielsen. “Our sampling department chose your home to represent television homes in your community. As a member of the panel, a small unit will be attached to your TV and any VCR in your home.” It goes on to say how we’ll be remunerated and thanks us for our cooperation. The problem is, we’re not cooperating. We’re not participating. We want this to end.

I’m willing to give them the benefit of the doubt that the woman who came to my house didn’t immediately tell them we weren’t participating, and so the letter was sent to us on the assumption we said yes. That she didn’t tell them after the first time I said no tells me she had no intention of giving up on us.

And so it was no surprise that she showed up at our house again on Sunday. This was a week after the first series of no’s and three days after the last phone call where I said no.

When the doorbell rang, my husband looked out and saw a car with New Jersey plates. A-ha!!! I remembered from the first visit that she drove from Jersey and I knew it had to be her.

“Don’t answer the door!!!! It’s Nielsen!!!!!”

To be sure, I waited until she walked back to her car. I recognized her immediately. We are now annoyed in a borderline-call-the-cops kind of way.

She and an unidentified man remained seated in the car for another five minutes or so.  Her partner was seen flipping through what looked like a small phone book, while he casually smoked a cigarette. I was crouched down on the floor of my dining room, watching for what they’d do next. They eventually drove away and then I thought it was over.

Not exactly.

The next day, on the way home from work, I approached my house and what should I see a few doors down but a car with New Jersey plates, idling in front of a neighbor’s house. Oh. My. God. Could it be?

As I passed slowly by the car, I quickly looked over and saw it was indeed our Nielsen friend again. She had her head down and so didn’t see me. But now I had a new problem.

If she looked up, she was going to see me pull into my driveway and into the garage. Then she’d know for sure I was home and I had no doubt she would barrel down the street and pound on my door. She did it before, she can do it again.

So I drove around the block, pulled over on the street that runs behind my house and called my husband. “Dave? Look out back.”

“What are you doing?”

“I’m hiding. The Nielsen lady is back. She’s out front, six doors down. I can’t come home. She’ll see me.”

“Hmmm. Then go to a movie. I’ll hold dinner for you.”

“Wiseass. No, seriously. What should I do?”

“I’ll put up the garage door and you can come around opposite her. If you floor it, you can get in quick. Ready?”

“Yeah. I’ll see you in a minute.”

I backtrack the way I came and floor it up the street. The garage door is open. I don’t see that the woman is where she was parked before, but I have no time to see where else she might be. I shoot in and lower the door. And then we wait. No one comes to the door. No one loiters outside. I think we’re finally safe from the Nielsen people.

What’s clear is they haven’t found another family to replace ours. Because we refused, they need to find another house on our street. What I don’t like is how they’re going about it. To be idling outside people’s homes, flipping through directories, tells me they haven’t sent a letter of invitation to anyone else. Now they’re just desperate.

There is something seriously wrong with this process. Under any other circumstances, if a stranger came to my house uninvited, twice, and kept badgering me to join their group, it might be considered harassment by communication (at least in the State of Pennsylvania). It’s not as though I was selected for jury duty and refused to participate.

There is no legal reason why a person needs to take part in the Nielsen Ratings system. If asked, and a person declines just once, they should cease and desist immediately. If I receive one more phone call or visit from them, I’m contacting the company and you’ll be hearing about it here. Stay tuned.

Think I’m overreacting? Nielsen doesn’t just want to know what you watch. They want your brain, too. (See last paragraph, first page).

Be afraid. Be very afraid.

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My husband Dave and I received a thick, official-looking envelope from the Nielsen Ratings Company last weekend. The Nielsen ratings system measures television viewership in the United States. The information they gather establishes commercial advertising prices and determines which shows stay or go in the program lineup.

Having this kind of control is a huge deal. Think of it as the adult version of being crowned Homecoming King and Queen. Not just anyone gets picked and you can’t volunteer for the privilege. Being selected as Nielsen Family means you’re something. People would kill to be you.

The letter gave a brief overview of how the system works and explained that we could make up to $450 for taking part. Sounds good, right? Wrong. I decided to do some research. Little by little, I realized we didn’t want to do this, since it comes with a whole lot of annoying strings attached.

The letter stated they’d like to “stop by to talk to you about this excellent opportunity.” I planned to give them an emphatic “We don’t want to do this” and the case would be closed. For some reason, I assumed they’d call to schedule the visit.

Instead, my door bell rang at 6PM last night.

Turn on the porch light, open the door and who do I find standing there but a Nielsen TV Ratings representative.

“Hi, you received our letter?”

“Yes, but we’ve decided not to take part.” Deaf to my response, she moved right into her spiel, explaining how wonderful an opportunity this is for me and wouldn’t I like to be part of the select group that was chosen by a very elaborate, scientific process… and on and on it went.

Rah, rah. I still don’t want to do it. It should be noted I did not invite her in. From what I’ve read, they can be pretty forceful and I knew if I let her in, I’d wind up making her dinner.  In more than one case, people have compared these folks to the FBI. My FBI agent came bearing a box of chocolates.

I gave her a look that said, “It’s not you. It’s me. I’m not ready for a relationship.”

She persisted with her cheerleader-y speech and I knew I was in trouble. I was going to have to fight. I was going to have to make her hate me. I was going to have to kill her with questions, and so began The Inquisition.

“I’d read that technicians come to your house and attach wires and boxes, and even solder something to every TV set in your house. Is this true?” I asked.

“I’m not sure. Maybe. But we wouldn’t damage anything.”

“We just bought a very expensive high-def TV and we don’t want anything to happen to it.” Concerned about the amount of time it takes to set everything up, I followed up with “How long will that take? I read it can take six or seven hours.”

“Well, probably not that long. Maybe four.”

I counter, “But then I’d have to take a vacation day. The amount of money you pay us isn’t worth the aggravation. I’m a very annoyed person.”

“Well, we could do it on a weeknight.”

“That’s worse.”

“We could do it on the weekend.”

“Not much better.”

I probe further. “I’ve also read that you have to login to a device every time you walk into a room with a TV on, and then logout when you leave. Is that true?”

“Yes. You need to punch in your name and age.”

“I don’t want to do that. Plus I’ve heard that if you don’t confirm you’re still watching TV after 42 minutes, a box starts flashing red lights until you press something on the remote.”

“That’s true.”

“But I’m a very annoyed person.”

She kept the joust going. “If it helps, we asked other participants if they found the process annoying and they said after about ten days, they got used to it.”

Ten days?!?!?!

Now rubbing my temples, and freezing because I’m standing in my doorway in a pair of shorts on a 35 degree night, I tell her “Really. We don’t want to do this. I know you’ll have to pick someone else on our street now. I’m sorry.”

“Well, I wish you’d reconsider. Here, at least have these chocolates as a token of our appreciation.”

“Thanks, but no. We’re dieting.”

“No, really. You’ve been so kind.” Kind? How? For letting you stand in my doorway and not inviting you in from of the cold?

“OK. I’ll take them and share them at work.”

“Would you allow me to call you in a few days to see if you changed your mind?”

Oh my God, lady! I said no! No means no!

Because I’m a crumpled, guilt-ridden, chocolate-box-holding mess now, I sigh, “Yes. You can call, but I really don’t think I’ll change my mind.”

I reluctantly give her my work phone number, knowing full well when she calls me, I’ll be saying no all over again. She thanks me, we part ways, and I finally get back inside my warm house with my box ‘o chocolates.

The first thing I do is get on my laptop and email my sister about tonight’s bizarreness. Her response:

She came all the way from New Jersey!!!! What if you weren’t home? What if you were a serial killer? I would never go to a stranger’s home by myself. Oh yeah, the chocolates would protect me. The idea is intriguing, but I would probably regret the whole thing if I had signed up. Do you have to fork over all your financial statements, too? It’s like the IRS, they’ll make you do it, or else! I would do it for maybe $5,000.

She’s right. If I signed up, I’d regret it immediately. The last thing I want to do when I get home from work is do more WORK. Press buttons, log in, deal with flashing lights if I don’t press a button in 42 minutes?!?! Yikes. I have enough pressure 9-5.

Not wanting to put off the inevitable, I contacted the representative today at lunch, hoping I’d get an answering machine. Unfortunately she picked up. I explained to her that after careful consideration, we still didn’t want to take part.

She was deflated. I reminded her for the third time what an annoyed person I am and to please understand that my time is more valuable than the money they offer, but if they really wanted people to take part, they ought to up the anty to $5,000.  That put an end to the ordeal. FINALLY.

Today I picked up our mail and found another package from the Nielsen people, which contained brochures, a questionnaire and five single dollar bills. A five spot? Multiply that by a thousand and we’ll talk. Or bring me a box of diamonds.

UPDATE: There’s more to the story. See http://www.junkdrawerblog.com/2008/03/next-step-restraining-order.html

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Can someone please tell me why I can configure and order a pizza online and have it delivered to my house in 30 minutes, but I can’t get an HMO referral form from my doctor without making four phone calls and have no confidence that the referral will get where it’s going without making a fifth call?

It’s the 21st century, people. Can we please get online now?

When I call my doctor to get a referral, I’m greeted by an excruciatingly-long introductory message that explains what numbers to press on the phone to be connected to a certain place.

The first three “If you need to ______, press # ___” instructions tell you to press either 1, 2 or 3. You would expect the fourth option to tell you to press #4, wouldn’t you?  Of course not. You press 15 on the keypad. Makes perfect sense.

Next, the nice recorded-voice lady tells me the seven pieces of information I need to leave in a message to get my referral, in very quick succession:

1. Name

2. Date of birth

3. Phone number

4. Doctor I need the referral for

5. Practice name and address

6. Nature of the visit

7. Health plan I have

Now, that’s all well and good, except I’m already stressed out that I won’t get all this information spat out in the right order and I’m not sure I heard it all. So I call back to go through the menu again and to hear the instructions again. Didn’t get it all. Call again.

Now, and only now, I’m ready to call back with all my information. I’ve rehearsed it well. I wrote it down on three post-it notes and I’m also on my second cup of coffee.

I leave all 7 pieces of information. But now do I press the pound (#) key to leave the message? Do I just hang up? What if they didn’t get it? Do I have any hope of reaching a person if I call again?

I guess I can call my doctor who needed the referral the next day. Another menu. Another wait until I get a human on the line. I finally get through and they confirm that they got the referral.

Yes, I’m glad I have health insurance. Yes, I’m glad it pays for my visit. But for crying out loud, can’t someone figure out how to set up a secure referral request system so I can do this online?

It would be such a simple form and I would get an email confirmation that everybody got what they needed. My God, my blog can do that! It boggles my mind that we are still using phones and fax machines for this process. You can’t tell me that the doctor’s office staff wouldn’t love this, too.

Thank you, slow, horrible, inefficient, non-online referral request system. Cripes, I could have had a pizza by now.

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I have a co-worker who farts. Well, not in the conventional sense. She doesn’t fart, but her shoes do.

Apparently Dr. Scholl’s makes a product called Massaging Gel Insoles that are supposed to provide added support and comfort to your feet all day long. Slip them in your shoes and you’re Ginger Rogers.

The problem, she says, is they’re made of plastic. Plastic makes your feet sweat. Sweaty feet make farting noises when you walk. We always know when she’s coming because she sounds like a fart machine. Farty fart fart.

Doesn’t anyone test these things in the real world before putting them out on the market?

I would make an awesome product tester:

1. If I worked for Dell, I could have told them years ago how stupid it was to stick front side USB ports underneath a big plastic panel that you have to lift up and then search around for the ports. The uplifted panel shields light from the area you’re poking around in, plus the ports are fixed at a 45 degree angle. Some of my clients at work ripped the damn things off permanently and it’s still hard to insert a thumb drive.

2. If I worked for Charmin, I could tell them that their Ultra Strong version of toilet paper doesn’t stand a chance in hell of being flushed down the toilet on the first try. It’s the consistency and thickness of paper towels, and no one with half a brain would try to flush paper towels. Stick with the Ultra Soft brand if you want to save a thousand gallons of water.

3. If I worked for any computer manufacturer, I would have told them how hard it is to read which is the DVD drive and which is the CD drive. Nice job printing which is which, embossed in black writing on a black background.

4. If I worked for TV manufacturers, I could tell them that people need about five buttons on a remote control, an ON/OFF button, two for channel-changing and two for volume. If it’s a DVR controller, a few more. I do not need half the buttons on my current controller. I can’t find the ones I need. Oh, and it’s the size of a mailbox. I almost need two hands to use it.

5. If I worked for Honda, I would have told them that the trunk latch and the gas cap release are too close together. I’m either opening my truck at the gas station, or opening my gas cap door when I need to unload groceries.

6. If I worked for a bedding company, I would have told them to make comforters the way they used to be made — so they’ll fit in your home washer and dryer. For God’s sake, at least put a label on the package that says “You’ll have to drag this beast to a laundromat and spend your Saturday afternoon pumping quarters in a jumbo washer because that’s the only one big enough, and then you’ll have to drag it half wet to your car because it’ll never get dry, and you may drop it on the way because it weighs fifty pounds and it’ll get nice and dirty again.”

So there. Will somebody please hire me as a product tester? And Dr. Scholl’s, you need to do something about your farting insoles.

———

Humor-bloggers wear fartless shoes.

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My husband hit the jackpot when he married me. Not because I’m a knockout (I’m not), and not because I can cook (I can’t). And certainly not because I need to keep up with the Joneses (that’s a race that never ends).

The reason he hit the jackpot is because I’m extremely low-maintenance. I’m a no-frills, simple girl who doesn’t need to have all the latest designer fashions, jewelry or expensive home interiors.

Which is why it makes no sense to me that it took three weeks, hours of online searching and nine stores to find a simple pair of black shoes. The kind of simple shoe that kindergartners would draw when asked to draw a shoe. The process shouldn’t have been so hard, it wasn’t fair and I’ve begun to think there’s a conspiracy against me.

It starts out with the day I discovered the heel separating from the right shoe of a pair that I loved. The shoe went from perfectly normal to crap in about a week. I can’t understand why. Both my legs are the same length, I do not have a limp, and I never ran the New York Marathon in them. Its partner is just fine. Righty has issues.

Just when I thought I should enter it into Ripley’s Believe It or Not as the Freak Shoe of a Freak-Footed Woman, I was relieved to read I’m not the only one with inexplicable clothing disintegration issues. My friend Jeff has a peculiar problem with wearing out only the left knee of his jeans. We are two peas in a pod. Abnormal, anatomically-disadvantaged peas in a pod.

Soon after my shoe started falling apart, I began my search for a replacement pair. Naturally, I thought I could just go online: Punch in Croft & Barrow. Click. Add to Cart. Click. Done. Then I remembered nothing is that easy for me. Not furniture or lamp or cake shopping. What made me think shoe shopping would be any different?

I’m not a total moron. I understand that shoe styles change from year to year, and that if you find a pair you really love, you should buy every single one in the store. Otherwise, you’ll never find them again. I’ve done that in the past with other shoes, but never in my wildest nightmares did I imagine I’d have such trouble finding a pair of plain black, lace-up shoes with a rubber sole. The store I bought them from doesn’t carry this style anymore. Shame on you, Kohl’s. You sold me a shoe I loved and then you took it away.

Here’s my opinion about the state of shoes today. Stores should always carry a base supply of regular shoes that have no buckles, snaps, clasps or adornment of any kind. After that, designers are perfectly welcome to go ahead, take their LSD and make shoes like these. When I did a general online search for "black lace-up shoes," these were among the selections: 

I did not type in Frankenstein, Dominatrix or Elton John. I typed black, lace-up shoes. Period. I fast ran out of patience browsing the 1,001 ridiculous ones and concluded it was unwise to order unfamiliar shoes online anyway. I wear shoes between a size 7 1/2 and 9, depending on the brand. It was best to try them on.

The week before Christmas, I stopped and browsed at six different shoe or department stores. Nothing. I would come home each night shoeless, and Dave would give me a "You’ll do better tomorrow" hug and hope a simple black shoe would magically make itself known to me.

After four days of striking out, I awoke one morning to find Dave had left this note for me on the fridge. Funny guy.

I gave up searching for a while, then the day after New Year’s, we traveled around town hitting up all the stores I hadn’t been to before. I thought I’d get lucky at a new upscale outdoor mall nearby. According to their website, they had ten shoe stores. Ten! This HAD to be the place.

I hit up L.L. Bean first and thought I had a winner. I picked out a black, lace-up shoe I marginally liked, and stood there waiting for a sales person to help me. At least three other women stood around with a single shoe in their hands waiting for someone to assist them, too.  I could see never getting waited on, so I gave up and put the shoe back on the shelf. Strike one.

We sought out the rest of the stores at the mall. Turns out, of the nine remaining stores, one sold only sneakers, one was a men’s store, three weren’t even in business yet and the other four only sold dress shoes. I hate you, 10-shoe-store mall! Strike two.

We soldiered on to the one remaining place to get shoes: a crowded, high-traffic mall that I never shop at unless I’m desperate. I hit up a JC Penney’s first and while perusing their selections, I overheard a woman complaining to a salesman: "I bought my favorite pair here last year, and you keep changing the styles. I can’t find them anywhere now!" I turned around to her and said "It’s a conspiracy." The salesman, wearing a pair of nice, plain black shoes, looked at us weird and offered up nothing. We ladies just shook our heads and walked away. Strike three. I’m out.

Wait…. maybe not.

There was one other department store in the mall I hadn’t checked — Boscov’s. This time, Dave didn’t come into the store with me, since he was tiring of our strike-outs. Better to just sit in the car, avoid my madness, and pray to himself that when I emerge from the store, I would be carrying a bounty of shoe boxes and we could get on with our lives, full to the brim with simple black shoes.

I hit a home run. Right out of the park!

Boscov’s had a simple black pair of shoes I loved. Not even lace-up! I almost kissed the salesman when he brought me this pair of shoes and they fit perfectly! Hello, Clark’s "Music"! My only disappointment was that they had just one pair in my size. No matter. I can order more from them online, knowing the brand and size. My prayers were finally answered.

I’ve just ordered two extra pairs, and as long as my feet don’t suddenly get fat, I’m golden. I’ll be in plain black shoes for years to come. Like everything else in my shopping life, this was an ordeal that tells me I’m being punished for something. I just don’t know for what.

Imagine if I was high-maintenance……

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I know. It’s sad and it doesn’t make any sense. Welcome to our Pumpkin Tree Display. We never intended to leave our autumn pumpkin display out on the patio, but it just happened. OK, strike that. It didn’t just happen. It happened because we are the laziest people we know.

Then a friend gave me a small artificial tree to stick out there because we can’t keep a tree in the house. Our cat, Lucky has "chewing issues," and would likely eat the needles and puncture a necessary organ. This is how we still enjoy a tree and keep Lucky from using up some of his nine lives.

I want to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas. I hope that Santa is good to you and better than he was to me. Today I woke up with a huge zit on my chin. So now when I have family pictures taken of me today and tomorrow, I will be instructed to cover up that thing or get out of the picture. Can someone please tell me when the pimples of my youth will stop showing up on the face of my 40-something self?

Happy Holidays to all my zit-free bloggy friends!

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At this moment, I’m trying not to scream.  I have just read that Google rescinded the change that forced me to move my blog to WordPress. All that pain and suffering was almost for nothing.

From BloggerBuzz:

December 20, 2007

You Blog, We Listen

Two fixes just went live, before we sign off for a brief holiday break:

• Unregistered commenters can once again provide an auto-linked URL [Help Group Thread]
• Images in the Header page element will no longer be cropped vertically [Help Group thread]

We apologize for having broken these features for you. Your blogs and Help Group posts showed us the true extent to which you used and cared about these features, so please let us know if they’re still being problematic.
Thanks for your patience!

What this means for people leaving comments on Blogger blogs is that they can again leave links directly to their blogs without having to use or create a Google account.  Simply click on the Nickname field and then a URL field is enabled, where you can enter your blog’s address. No more having to setup an OpenID account or login to Google.

Do I regret having moved to WordPress now? Not exactly. I still have way more control over my blog and more flexibility with features than I ever had with Blogger. There are some very cool and useful widgets and plug-ins that I’m using now with WordPress and that I’m planning to implement in the future. So all is not lost.

I just wish I hadn’t been forced to learn a new platform so quickly. That’s not how I operate. I prefer having enough time to research things and move ahead cautiously and carefully, instead of flying by the seat of my pants like I did with the migration to WordPress. At the time I moved, there was zero indication that Google would come to their senses and bring back the URL field for direct blog links.

I recognize that there are far greater problems in the world than my difficult migration to WordPress, I really do. But it did cost me a significant amount of time and effort. And hosting is not free, so there is a cost there as well. When Google states "We Blog, You Listen," they should add "And We Fail to Think Ahead and Don’t Know How to Communicate." The way they went about the change, with no concern for its implications in the blogging community and no warning, is deplorable for such a large corporation.

Bringing back the feature now is too little, too late for me and others who fled to WordPress or other blogging platforms. And, for that, they deserve a huge bag of coal for Christmas. And a punch in the face.

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As you know, I’ve been struggling with what to do about Google’s idiotic change in its commenting system. It’s been a nightmare dealing with the issue and considering my options.

After much pain and anguish, I’ve decided to move my blog to a new platform. No more Blogger. It’s WordPress, baby! I’ll let you know when that happens. Hopefully, the migration will be seamless.

My good friend, J.D. over at I Do Things So You Don’t Have To has been listening to me grouse about the Blogger mess for several days. She knows I’ve been irritated and consumed by this problem, especially because it’s kept me from writing about anything else.

She told me, "Well, you can’t always write about fluffy kittens and sunshine." As I pondered that nugget yesterday, I watched my cat Stinky twitch about while she was dreaming. I caught her just as she was waking up out of what I suppose was a nightmare about Big Bad Google screwing up my blog.

Because I wanted to post something cute, fluffy and non-Googly today, here she is for your viewing pleasure. The other cat to come into the picture is Stinky’s arch nemesis, Lucky, aptly named because he escaped death for ruining our furniture.

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Yesterday I posted about the recent unannounced change to Google’s commenting system on Blogger blogs. If you host with Blogger, this change is significant and will likely cause a drop in your readership.

The post I wrote didn’t include a complete enough explanation of why this will impact you, so I would encourage you to visit BlogCatalog, where there is a more involved explanation of the problem and links to other blogs where the issue is being discussed.

There is also a link to the appropriate place to voice your concern to Google about this change.

Check out the discussion on BlogCatalog today!

And speaking of problems with Blogger, there is a problem with the way pictures are handled in posts. When a reader clicks on a picture, they are asked to download it or open it with a program of their choosing. Before, the picture would simply open within the browser. This is a known bug and Google is working on a solution.

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Seems this is a big weekend for Poopy Heads. Google has just changed the way people can leave comments on blogs hosted on Blogger, such as this one. I’m not happy with this change and it’s made me seriously consider moving to another blogging platform.

Until I decide what to do, I thought I’d at least announce what happened and explain all the commenting options now in place.

Why is Google a Poopy Head?

When leaving comment, no longer can you click on the Other option and enter your name and URL back to your own blog. They’ve replaced that field with Nickname, which only allows you to type your name. Poopy Head Move #1.

The old way was much more user-friendly and gave you a way to easily link me and my readers back to your blog.

What to do?

Commenters WITH Google accounts may still login with their Google User ID and password to leave a comment. But when the comment is posted, people will get a link to your profile (not your blog). I know, that stinks. Poopy Head move #2.

Commenters WITHOUT Google accounts have several options, none I like very much. Big Giant Collective Poopy Head Move.

1. Create a Google account and just use it for commenting. This method also means you can check the box to be notified by email of responses to comments.

2. Choose the Nickname field and just enter your name. Simple enough, if you just want to leave your name behind.

3. Enter your blog’s URL below your comment. It’s a poor substitute for the old method, but at least it means anyone who wants to visit your site can copy and paste it (or type it) into a browser URL field to get there. It will not be clickable!!!

A pain, I know, but this is probably the easiest option if you want to display your blog address. (Read on for how to make it a clickable link).

4. Click the drop-down arrow next to "Sign-in using:" and choose one of the services listed if you have an account with one of them. Enter the information it requests (assuming you know it — not all users will).

5. You can still click Anonymous, if you prefer.

Yeah, but what if I really, really, really want to leave a clickable link to my blog in your comments? No problem. You just have to enter your blog’s address in this format:

<a href="http://www.yourblogname.com">Text to Display</a>

Of course, you would replace the "yourblogname" part with your blog’s address, and replace "Text to Display" with whatever you want the link to read.

I’ve done this myself and it takes just a few times to memorize the format. You could also keep a little text file handy with your code already formatted. Just copy and paste into your comment and you’re off. Go ahead and copy the above text and practice it by leaving me a comment and a link to your blog!

If you have any questions, or if you just want to complain about this new system, drop a comment in the drawer. Oh, how we love to complain here! It’s good therapy. 

UPDATE: Google has rescinded this change. Read about it here. Sorry, Google. Too little, too late.

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Dear Poopy Head Truck Driver:

I know you didn’t mean it when you had an accident on the bridge I cross to get to work. But I just have to tell you what you were responsible for this morning.

1. You made me 45 minutes late for work.

2. You made about 2,500 other people 45 minutes late for work. That means the world lost 1,875 man hours of work, about a year’s worth of a typical job.

3. You forced me to look death in the eye and try crazy stunts to shoot off the last exit before the bridge in an effort to get away from the traffic jam.

4. You made it so that 1,000 other drivers tried the same thing and caused us to get in a second traffic jam on side roads.

5. You made my office have to make a pot of Disney Mickey Mouse coffee that’s been in the refrigerator for about a year, since I had the supply of new coffee in my car.

6. You caused all the people who could finally get moving again to gun the accelerator and violate every driving rule known to man, trying to make up lost time.

7. You made me hate the innocent cyclist who I saw whiz by me at one point, getting to his destination on time.

8. You made a thousand people, who just finished their morning coffee, wish for a Port-o-Potty on the side of the road.

I hope you totaled your truck, don’t have insurance and have to take a bus to work for a month. I hope you were cited and fined for your incompetence. I hope everyone flipped you off when they made it past your stupid accident. You should be lucky they didn’t kill you. I know I wanted to.

P.S. Poopy Head isn’t what I was calling you that whole time, but this is a G-rated blog, so that’ll have to do.

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Because we apparently angered the furniture gods, Dave and I are still having problems with our living room. In this case, it’s a problem with our lamps. More on that in a minute.

I promised an update on the state of the living room. Here it is:

When we bought our couch and chair (the one with the black cat on it), we realized that they needed to be separated by lots of space. It looked too cramped with everything on one side of our small room. The coffee table is now scratched beyond recognition because of the trouble-making cat you see on the couch, so now it serves as our TV stand.

And yes, that’s a teddy bear sitting next to him. It belongs to the third cat, Stinky (not pictured). Yeah, my cats have favorite stuffed animals. Got a problem with that?

With the set now split apart, we needed something to bridge the canyon in the middle of the room, so we threw down a rug and pulled the red chair in from another room.

Yes, we know it looks like we were inebriated when we set it up like this, but it fits our style and we don’t mind that the colors don’t match. We’re choosing to call this look drunken feng shui eclectic.

So what’s up with the lamps? Long story. It involves a set of brass balls.

We bought two lamps (you see only one here) from a place about 20 miles from home. It was a pain in the butt to drive there, but we’d spent weeks on an unsuccessful hunt for a specific kind of brass lamp, and we got it on good authority that this place would have what we wanted.

Turns out they had tons of brass lamps in their showroom, but we ultimately went with a catalog order because it offered brass lamps with pull chains instead of on/off knobs. We insisted on pull chains with brass balls hanging from them. But ordering from a catalog meant a six week wait.

Six weeks finally came and Dave picked up the lamps and brought them home. We ordered two of the same one. And why do I want to kill people now? They didn’t match. One set of balls was smaller than the other set. So we hiked back to the lamp store and plopped them down on the counter.

"Hi. We bought these lamps and they don’t match. See how the pull chains are different? These balls are smaller than those balls. Plus they hang crooked. And when you pull on one, the chain grinds."

"I see."

"And one of the sockets is broken. The bulb won’t light."

"OK."

"And see how the shine is duller on this one versus the other?"

"Uh-hmm."

We expected to hear "We’re sorry. We’ll order another one." Instead we got "Hmmm, not sure what I can do here."

"Say what?"

"They were imported. I’m going to have to let the company know. They might not even know they’re having a problem."

Still taking in the part about "not sure I what we can do here," I almost missed that last little nugget "…they’re having a problem" as in, she didn’t feel she had any responsibility to make things right. Lady, it’s not the company who has a problem. You have a problem. Me.

She said she’d call today and let me know what the company can do for us. Said she’d order another set and maybe they’d come in identical.

What. The. Hell.

"Maybe they’ll come in as a matched set? I don’t understand."

"Sometimes this happens with lamp manufacturers. You can’t guarantee that if you order two, they’ll be identical." She even had the nerve to say "If you hadn’t seen the two mismatched ones together, you wouldn’t even have noticed the brass balls were wrong if they’d both come in with the balls you don’t like."

"But we ordered the lamp with the bigger balls. They look better than the smaller balls. We want the bigger balls."

I asked her to cancel the replacement order. Fine. And why am I still cranky about this? Because we’re total idiots and left the lamp shades at home and now we have to drive another 40 miles to return them. We thought they would just replace the lamps and so we didn’t think to take the shades with us.

So now we’re just hoping the stupid lamp store will reimburse us at 100%. And I’m hoping a place that sells the brass lamps with big balls will come to me in a vision. We are angry and still lampless. Will someone please throw us a bone?

All we wanted was nice, normal furniture and lamps with balls that match. We do not know what we’ve done to deserve this. A friend of mine said he recently had to replace his furniture and he and his wife went to ONE store and picked out things they liked in TWENTY MINUTES. I hate him and I hope all his stuff falls apart the day after his warranty runs out.

UPDATE 11/27: Dave dropped off the shades today and we got a full credit for everything. We’re back to square one again, but at least the nonsense with the lamp store is over!

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They can’t say I didn’t try.

Back on October 1st, I made a resolution to stop saying "like" so much. I got tired of hearing myself say it in every other sentence. I vowed to drop a quarter in a jar every time I used it as a filler word. I dropped a lot of quarters, and then bills, as you can see.

I would have had the same degree of success if I’d vowed to, say, drive to work every day backwards at 120MPH wearing big clown shoes. It fast became an impossible task.

Thankfully, resolutions are meant to be broken. So I’m back to saying "like" and what a relief. LIKE LIKE LIKE LIKE LIKE LIKE!!! Ahhhh, that feels better.

Throughout my little experiment, every time I felt a "like" coming on, I would stall, stutter, and stumble for something else to put in its place. Or I’d just skip the word entirely and replace it with an uncomfortably long pause. But that was unsatisfying, like when you feel a sneeze coming on, but can’t get it out.

I wanted and needed a "like" in there and it felt ridiculous to try not to do it. It got embarrassing, too, because people thought I was having a stroke when they saw that vacant look in my eyes while I searched for a word. She alright? What’s wrong with her?

After a few weeks of this crazy challenge, something really weird started to happen. I developed other speech and gesturing problems when I talked.

Out of nowhere, I began to say "literally" a lot, even when I knew it was stupidly inappropriate. As in, "Jason, I literally forgot my lunch today. Wanna go out for something?" It’s as though my brain was looking for any filler word, no matter how dumb it sounded.

Whenever "literally" didn’t cut it, out came the air quotes.

I’ve been accused of being animated with my hands when I talk excit