What I look like

In case you were wondering.

Ugly Ass Purses You Probably Can't Afford

Well, as promised I'm back with more really hideous purses. These are all expensive, though. In fact, several of them cost more than rent. Just a suggestion: if you find yourself tempted to spend this much money on something to carry your lipstick in, please please please consider Oxfam or Care instead.

Now first for some perspective. I suppose you may be wondering what I would consider to be an attractive purse. See, it's simple and elegant. No gratuitous chains, fasteners, feathers, fur or dangly things.



It's what I would consider an investment purse at $278. It's a Coach. I used to love Coach unconditionally. But then they came up with this:



This one is $358 and features woven straw. I thought we went over this in the 60's - woven straw is not an attractive purse medium.

Newsflash: purses do not get cold.



Please do not put fur on them.

Here's what I'm calling the Pursequarium. It's $498.



[Note: they also sell a beach towel with this motif for $168.]

[And baby booties for $98! Hahahahahahahahaaaaa!]



Ok. Sorry. Back to the purses. Here's a really queer Kate Spade, selling for $325.



You could hurt yourself on one of those corners. Imagine barking your shin on your purse while trying to get up from the table at the restaurant.

Don't tell the kids, but this one's made from a Muppet. (It's $425!)



And I could've sworn I threw this out in 1975. It was all nasty in the attic.



Look at this - Prada goes ghetto!



Only $935!

This next one looks like it's made from balls.



No wonder it's so expensive - $1,458!

I think Versace is trying way too hard to be cool. Someone should tell them this is not.



At least it's relatively cheap - $428.

To me, this one screams out Florida Retirement Community:



What pisses me off about this one is the zipper. How are you gonna zip that up? Oh, and it's $1052.

Our final example is a Fendi.



Now I thought I already said no fur on purses. It's the most expensive purse I've ever seen: $1,793. That's more than two months rent for me.

I think we can put to rest the whole money/taste correlation, don't you?

My helpful phoney

I love to text message. It's so secret and private. And you have total control. It's not like being on the phone, where you have to answer the question immediately. You can read the question and compose your answer at leisure. You can edit and rewrite, and maybe rethink what you want to say. I love it.

One thing, though, is that my cell phone tries to be a little too helpful. It wants to finish words for me. I'm trying to type "complain" and it suggests "computer". Not what I was looking for. I want to type "deter" or "detract" and it suggests "details." Get a vocabulary. It's gotten so normally I just ignore the suggestions because my cell phone rarely can figure out where I'm going.

But today I think it must be ill. Or I've broken it somehow, or accidentally somehow set it to suggest in Swahili. I'm going to type the word "contest." I type "con" and the phone comes back with "n'prss". So the word is "conn'prss", huh? Okay. Anybody know what that means??

Conn'prss, y'all. Yeah.

Most Balls Ever

I'm on with a customer right now who wants insurance very quickly. He's in his car. There's a state trooper outside his car window waiting to give him a ticket.

We are, of course, having computer trouble tonight. First we can't find his information. Then we find it and the system won't let me sell him the policy. The trooper interrupts him several times wanting to know if we found his policy and he keeps putting him off, telling the trooper there is a glitch and we are trying to look it up.

Finally the computer relents and lets me sell the guy his insurance. I give him his policy number. He rolls down the window and gives it to the trooper.

Just as calm as you please.

More fun with communication

Let me just say right off that I'm a visual person. I have trouble sometimes hearing something and getting it so a lot of times I have to have people spell stuff for me. With names though, most people offer to spell it out right up front and thank goodness.

The following people, however, did not offer to spell their names:

Kenyactha

Orquichia

Ahqueelah

Evgeniy Klyuchinskiy [When I asked him to spell his name, he asked, "Which one?"]

Now, is this my problem? Or their problem??

Ill Communication

From a recent conversation with a customer:

Me: What's your current mailing address?

Customer: 1234 Night Pooper Road.

Me (trying not to laugh): Um, could you spell that please?

Customer: Yeah - M-I-K-E C-O-O-P-E-R.

Me: Ahhhhh. Okay, thanks.

Ugly Ass Purses

Recently I've been horrified by what I observe is a huge trend towards Ugly Ass Purses. I'm stunned almost daily by the bags I see people carrying - I just do not understand. Call me old, call me un-hip, I do not get these purses. See if you agree. This week, we shopped with the masses at a major department store.

[Note: if you see your new purse here, I'm sorry. I think it's ugly.]





First case in point. Do these spangly things not get snagged on just about everything?? Or just all fall off? And can you not do without seeing tiny little round reflections of yourself every time you go to get out your lip balm??

Next:




I don't know if this is the worst one we saw, but it would at least tie for the worst one we saw. It's like they had three different ideas and couldn't bear to give them to one purse each but had to combine them all into one uber-ugly purse. I've seen these medallion thingies on belts too. They don't look any better than they do on the purse, I'm afraid.

What happened here?



I know! Her prom corsage threw up on her evening bag.

Okay, now look at this one:



God, please tell me that macrame is NOT COMING BACK.

Now here, we have two rows of ugliness. On the top row, what the hell were they thinking with these colors? Eeuuww.



And then look at the sad white one. This totally belongs with a leisure suit.


Please don't ever buy this purse:



unless you're, like, five. Look at the stuff it says: Epic. Ooooh. How COOL. Punk Princess. An oxymoron, as Sydney pointed out.

Now, I'll bet you're thinking, "There could not possibly be one more ugly ass purse to see."

Well, you're so sadly wrong. This next one is also tied for Worst Purse I've Ever Seen:




This one is a Hobo purse. Not only does it feature authentic coins, but also wooden disks. I guess the idea is that you can sound like a windchime everywhere you go!

What, is this supposed to go with your hula skirt?



This one's made of Plastic!



Can you imagine how nasty this is going to look after you've had it for, like, ten minutes? C'mon, just because it feels like an eraser doesn't mean all the ugly smut is going to Magically Disappear off of the thing when you come in off the street.

Okay, my grandmother used to have these chairs that were upholstered in this fabric:



I just threw up. Look:



And just because I'm tired right now, I'll finally let you look at the Ugliest Ass Purse I've Ever Seen:



I'm really at a loss for words. The colors...the pointy angled V shapes...the orbs (or are they bells?) I don't even want to imagine what sort of person would buy this bag, but what will give me nightmares tonight will be imagining what they'd wear with it. [Shudder...]

Next time we'll look at the Ugly Ass Purses that only Rich People can buy!

A modest proposal

I was looking down at my black wool coat on the way to work this afternoon and was inspired. Why don't I invent a line of cat fur clothing? Now before you go and get all PETA on me, I don't mean skinning cats and using the skins to make garments out of. Even if I didn't care about the poor kitties I wouldn't propose that because it wouldn't work. As everyone knows, the one thing that cat hair doesn't do is stay on the cat.

Just think of the benefits:

- No futile lint-brushing every time you leave the house - you're covered with cat hair on purpose!
- No need for allergy-causing dyes - cats come in every color
- Cats will be cozier when napping on your sweater
- Coordinate your look - have cat/person matching outfits
- Cat hair is an infinitely renewable resource. In fact I have several sweaters worth just lying around my house right now!

So there's my idea. You might just learn how to purr.

Cool stuff on my desk

I heart my desk. I have the best stuff and the best toys. Here are some things you'll find on my desk. Above, my three-legged good luck pig. He's from Chile. I have three of these because every time I go to Tesoro's they are just irresistably cute and I'll see one with a different facial expression and have to have it.

By far my favorite desk item is my iPod. I've got one of those donut speakers for it so I can (quietly) listen to tunes at work. Also, don't tell, but I once watched the Family Guy movie up here when it was really slow.


Next up we have bendy things.


These are Benders. I love them. They are magnetic and bendable. The monkeys came inside a tin banana! There's a duck there too, if you can see him among the monkeys.

I also have a dog and cat.



Next we have my toy box. It's a Hershey's Chocolate tin. I worked in an office one time where sales reps would send gifts to us and one Christmas we got this tin filled with Hershey's Kisses. It is now full of toys.


In front of the toy box is a tin of Crazy Aaron's Thinking Putty in Scarab. It's very fun to play with, but my piano teacher once told me not to play with putty because it's bad for your hands. So I'm scared to play with it anymore.

One of my favorite things on my desk is the tiny Airstream trailer. (Shown here with plastic nun.) How I got this is my freshly-exed boyfriend gave it to me for my 40th birthday. Only what he did (and this was really really clever) was he Photoshopped it onto a picture of my house like it was an Actual Size Airstream Trailer and gave me the photo, thinking I'd get all excited that even though I just dumped him he got me an Airstream, which I'd always wanted. Ehhh heh. Just the same it's one of my favorite things. I actually had a real Airstream for a while. I miss it.


And here's my pals. Every year we go to Toy Joy to shop for Xmas stocking stuff. And for a while they carried Beanie Babies which I love, but not in that don't-cut-the-tag-off-and-make-a-killing-selling-them-on-eBay way. So everybody got a Beanie Baby in their stocking. The monkey is a Beanie Baby. The dog is a Jellycat. Don't they look cute all palsy-walsy?


This is Scorch the Dragon. He's another Beanie Baby. He was so irresistible we had to buy three of him. One for all the women in our clan.



One action toy is this Lego. It comes in two parts, both of which have rubber-tipped arrow-type weapons. You launch the weapon from the first creature/vehicle and aim it at the target on the second one. If you hit the target it launches its own arrow. Very fun. Except when the arrow goes awry and you have to disconnect your headset to collect it. I actually had someone throw the arrow in their trashcan because I was on a call and couldn't collect it from the floor in time.



And these are the best toys ever. They're made by this guy. Featured here are Critter and two Katitas. You just wind them up and they go berserk. Right on your desk. Zachary got a Sparklz for Xmas which I am totally going to steal from him as soon as I think I can get away with it. (Check out Sparklz here.)



There's more, but I gotta go use some of the actual work-related items on my desk. Heh heh.

How embarrassing....

The other day I was at the doctor's. He stepped out for a moment so I could put my clothes back on, and I was just getting ready to pull up my underpants when he walked in. Yikes! He backed out of there pretty quick.

Thank goodness I had on my Felix the Cat underwear.

Puzzlers, Part Four

I saw this yesterday and since I had my camera at work, I just had to sneak into the bathroom with it and take this photo. [Nothing can prepare you for how conspicuous you feel trying to take a picture in the bathroom.]

Puzzling first is the sanitary napkin wrapper that is taped to the trash dealie. Hmm.

But that's not the real puzzler. You can't see it very well but the little sign on the trash door is actually on all the trash cans in all the restrooms where I work. It pictures a razor, a nail and an Xacto knife blade and says, "No sharps disposal. Please dispose of in the biocontainer." Okay. I'm all the time finding myself with a pocket full of unwanted nails here at work, and the very first place I think of getting rid of them is the restroom trash cans. WTF??!!

Ex-husband torture

Today Sydney and I invented a fun game. Here's background: my ex has agreed in our divorce to pay child support until Zachary graduates from high school. But Zachary isn't going to graduate on time. So my ex is planning to get a court order to stop the child support in May even though Zachary will still technically be in school. So I was complaining about the financial hardship this is going to impose.

Me: :o( I need to get a 2nd job. Or something.

Sydney: that sucks! i think you just need to go give dad a swift kick in the balls!

Me: Oh I would so love to do that. Or pull out his curly hairs one by one with tweezers.

Sydney: ok, that was totally one of those laughing and being grossed out at the same time moments! YOU can pull out his hairs one by one, I'LL give him the kick in the balls. good plan, no?

Me: Excellent plan, but we should think of some way for Zachary and Hannah to join in.

Sydney: definitely...they can put pencils in his eyes or something....or shave his head...hmmm

Me: Oh that made me laugh SO HARD. Pencils in his eyes!! Shaving his head does have the advantage of being humiliating, but it wouldn't be painful. I'd maybe want to see somebody apply a binder clip to his nose. Yeah, that would work.

Sydney: yeah, because i guess we don't want to permanently damage his eyeballs, we just want him to be really uncomfortable. WAIT! i've got it! we give him a lot of medication so he passes out, then give him a tattoo!!

Me: What would he hate the most?! We could tattoo his face like a cat. Or huge erect penises on each forearm. Or something anime. Hello Kitty maybe? What do you think?

Sydney: the first thing that came to mind was "butterfly!" or i don't know...a "support the troops/american flag/pro g bush" collage??

Me: A PORTRAIT OF THE PRESIDENT. SURROUNDED BY AMERICAN FLAGS. And I like the butterfly idea.

Sydney: that is a fabulous idea! and the whole thing can be surrounded by butterflies...

Anybody else want in on this??

Fun Pranks, Part Three

Okay, this is so perfect. I WANT TO DO THIS PRANK.

The other day a lady in an SUV totally cut me off trying to get around a bus, and she wouldn't ever look in her rearview mirror so I could flip her off! It was so frustrating.

Things started looking up, however, when she turned left onto the same street I was heading for. AND THEN SHE TURNED RIGHT INTO A DRIVEWAY ON THAT STREET!!! She totally lives right there! And I pass her house at least three times a week!

So, here's my plan. I want to go over there at about three o'clock in the morning and let the air out of all her tires. Wearing gloves, of course. And leave her a note.

Or maybe I could just leave a series of notes.

Or maybe I could post a picture of her car on the internet.

I am officially Old

A while back, early October probably, I woke up with a very sore elbow after sleeping with my hand between my knees. I could barely bend it. I figured it was because I had put too much pressure on it and that the soreness would eventually go away. Well it's months and months later and it still hurts. Some days I can barely lift a box of cereal with my left hand. I can't lift weights which really pisses me off. I'm getting really buff from the waist down but the ol' arms are still weak as kittens.

So it occurred to me just the other day that this might be ...arthritis. I went online to About.com and took a fun quiz. It turns out that I scored a 41% on the quiz so I don't know whether I have it or not. One of the quiz questions was, "True or False: You are too young to have arthritis." They don't say how young that is, though. So I just put False. Another thing about this quiz is they give you feedback as you go along on whether you're doing well on the test. "Your answer to this question is consistent with the symptoms of arthritis. Continue taking the quiz." Or, "Your answer to this question is not consistent with the symptoms of arthritis. Continue taking the quiz.

The expected answer consistent with arthritis is:

Does one or more of your joints appear swollen?

is:

Yes"

Well, phew. Another question, "Did you fall recently?" Heh heh. That cracks me up for some reason.

So I'm guessing this means I should go to the doctor, huh? Or maybe I'll just brew me up some rheumatiz medicine.

Here's something fun

Washing the blender. Does anybody know how to do this without getting stabbed?

Dentist fears justified?

Recently I had a very strange dream. I still can't figure out what it might mean. See if you have any thoughts.

I was at the dentist and he was fitting me for some apparatus that may have ended up looking like the one sported by young Willy Wonka in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. I'm not sure what it ended up looking like because I suddenly came to realize that the dentist was trying to make an incision in the meaty part of my hand between my thumb and forefinger. I was alarmed that this would hurt a great deal. He wanted to go ahead and do it so that he could insert a dime in the resulting hole.

Thank goodness I demanded that he provide me with a reason it was medically necessary to stick a dime into my hand. Unfortunately I woke up, somewhat disturbed, before finding out just what it was.

Norma likes to stand on Baxter

The reason the tags in your clothing are so itchy

They sew them in with teeny clear plastic barbed wire.

Puzzlers, Part Three

Today's puzzler I found on the floor as I was leaving Target on Saturday.



I'm totally flummoxed as to what this product could actually be. First off, sock? Maybe this is just me, but don't people usually wear two? Maybe it's, um, not for your foot. Maybe I'm just missing the other one: perhaps it's labeled "Indoor Sock." And you're just supposed to hop around on one foot or the other, depending where you are. That brings up the second thing - outdoor? I figure since you usually wear shoes _over_ the socks it wouldn't really matter whether your socks were indoor socks or outdoor socks. Right?

I think this is going to bear some more research. I was in too much of a hurry to go back into Target and see if I could find where this sticker came from, but I'm off work tomorrow, so maybe I'll go out there and investigate.

I'll let you know what I find out!

Voice of Experience

Okay, it is generally not a good idea to apply any quantity of hand lotion before heading to the gym to lift weights.

Just a heads-up.

Blog Review: The Sneeze

I've been on a quest to find funny stuff on the internet pretty much since I found out about the internet. Having recently started blogging, I bet myself that there are other funny blogs to be discovered. So I did a Google search: Humor Blogs. While I still haven't been able to reproduce the pathway that I took to get there (it didn't come up on the first Google page but on a link I followed from there) I can still tell you how to get there because I bookmarked it.

Go to The Sneeze and prepare to laugh. This guy is seriously wacky. If I were you, I'd start out with Steve, Don't Eat It. I read this while at work and had to make prodigious use of the mute button when on calls with customers because I could not stop laughing. So be warned. My favorite is vol. 7, Cuitlacoche. Holy cow, I just read it again and I'm laughing as hard as I did the first time. Check out the pictures.

Another highlight is Steve's interview with his son after discovering some permanent artwork added to his newly remodeled bathroom.

There are hilarious ads on the sidebar for actual products you can buy, under the heading "Treat Yourself!" Yesterday the product was Anal Douche. (With a picture!) Today's product is Elk Carcass. (Buy new - $1,195.00!)

Also, I like his subtitle.

So I now check The Sneeze daily and you should too.

Fun Pranks, Part Two

There's nothing funny about cancer. Or is there?

While we were waiting for our sliced meats and cheeses at the deli the other day, Sydney happened to mention that someday she'd like to have one of her nipples pierced. I replied that I, too, had thought of having my left one pierced after I have my reconstruction surgery. Cleverly thinking that there won't be any feeling in it, after all. She mistakenly thought I was talking about having my prosthesis pierced, which totally cracked both of us up and gave us this idea for a fun prank.

Me (at piercing parlor): I'd like to have my nipple pierced, please!

Piercer: Okay, well you can be next but it'll be about twenty minutes.

Me (reaching into blouse): Oh, no. I just thought I would drop it off.

Piercer: !!!!

Some problems you can step on

[Contains REAL Investigative Journalism!]

One day several years ago I happened to be looking at the bottom of my foot and noticed a little tiny pit, smaller than the size of a pin head. I was mildly intrigued but soon forgot about it. Over time I checked my foot pit every once and a while and when it started getting bigger I thought to myself, "Why, this must be a plantar wart!"

And so it was. Is.



I've messed with it. I've stuck a pin into it and I've tried to snip it off with nail clippers. I've even gotten one of those home kits and tried to chemically freeze it away. (You'd think it was a little container of nuclear waste the way they've packaged the freezy stuff.) And just the other day it occurred to me that it might be sort of interesting to find out what the hell caused this tiny blight.

The first thing I found out is that, "...standing and walking often causes them to grow into deep layers of the skin." (!!) I don't think I want that. I then found out that they are caused by the Human Papilloma Virus. Yuck. Wondering how I got to be so lucky as to catch this little booger, I read further, "Risk factors include repeated HPV exposure (e.g., walking barefoot in public locker rooms and common bathing areas)." Whoa there, I think we found it! I've always thought my dad was a bit fussy in his insistence in wearing rubber flip flops into the shower but I think he may have been onto something. I'm wondering now if I'll be able to find me some of those to keep in my gym bag, it being the dead of winter...

They are "similar in structure to an iceberg...Often, the portion of the wart under the skin is at least twice as big as the part you can see." Holy shit. I am totally grossed out now.

But here's the best news: "If left untreated, plantar warts can grow up to 1 inch in circumference and may spread into clusters (called mosaic warts)." Mosaic warts! Now that sounds downright artistic. I can't wait to see if I can develop me some mosaic warts.

Now we'll get to the treatment. "Over-the-counter medications contain chemicals that destroy skin cells (e.g., acid) and may damage healthy tissue surrounding the wart. Self-treatment for plantar warts using an over-the-counter preparation is not recommended." Uh oh.

Other professionally administered alternatives include mild acid, laser treatments, cryotherapy, or surgical removal. Heh heh - now I'll bet you're wanting to learn a little bit about...

Prevention: "Avoid walking barefoot whenever possible." (Rats. I love to go barefoot.) Now this one's just insulting - "Change shoes and socks daily." And even worse - "Avoid direct contact with warts on other persons or on other parts of the body." WTF!!?? What on earth would make them think anybody is going to go around touching OTHER PEOPLE'S WARTS??!!

Okay - now I know way more about this than I ever wanted to. What about you?

All information I got came from here:

The Podiatry Channel!! Now that's some television!

My Cat Strategy

Ok - show of hands. How many people are sick of hearing about my cat issues??

Well I'm sick of it too. This morning I've decided to launch a two-pronged approach.

The first prong I came up with while sitting at my computer when I saw Joe under the desk preparing to add some to the puddle of pee (which I've never noticed until now) on the bottom shelf where I used to keep the printer paper. (It's nice 'n' private, a priority for cats.) I gasped, startling him, and chased him out of the computer room, down the hall, through the living room, and under the couch while I opened the front door, and then out the front door. He tried running back into the house when I went to add something to the recycling bucket outside. Fuck you, kitty. Back outside.

I didn't let him back in until I felt comfortable that he had to have relieved himself outside.

So, to recap: Prong one - Jettison Kitty Before he Pees.

Prong two is my favorite because it's something I'm especially good at: being positive. So here goes:

Top three reasons I'm glad Joe stopped using the litter box

1. I don't have to clean out the little clumps every day.

2. There's not as many annoying little bits of cat litter on the bathroom floor for me to step on.

3. I now have a really good reason to finally throw away all the random Amazon.com boxes scattered around the house.

I'll report back as always and let you know how we're doing.

PS - Do you know if you can auction off a cat on eBay??

Fun Pranks, part one

This prank was described to me by my dear departed father, who had a wickedly dry sense of humor and was crazy about practical jokes.

What you do is, you find someone who has taken apart their car or lawnmower and is putting it back together. You then surreptitiously place an unrelated (but it should _look_ related) part or parts down among the real ones. Now find a shady spot to watch and wait. The fun begins when the guy has all the parts put back together but the ones you put down there, and he doesn't know what to do with them or where they should have gone. If you're lucky he may even take it all apart again and start over.

Daddy was always very careful to describe all his pranks in theoretical terms, being the responsible father, so we were never quite sure which ones actually worked and which ones were just brilliant ideas which hadn't ever been tested. So if you ever happen to try this, please report your results.

A typical day on the road

Dogs: Are we walking? Are we walking? ARE WE WALKING?????

Me: C'mon.

[Walk walk walk]

Norma: Oh wow - look. I am totally keeping this yellow napkin.

Me: Drop it, Norma.

Baxter: Sorry man - that was really rank.

Norma: Yeah, she just doesn't get it does she..

[Walk walk walk]

Baxter: Crap - they've filled up the hole!

[Yesterday there were 12in. deep trenches dug around all the utility poles. You know how very interesting a hole can be.]

[Walk walk walk]

Baxter (pooping): Hang on a sec.

Norma: Let's walk off while she's trying to pick it up.

Baxter: Totally!

[Walk walk walk]

Norma (backing up to the chain link fence): Watch this - I'm gonna poop on the other side so she can't get it!

Baxter: You try that every day.

Norma: Yeah, I know, but one of these days it's gonna work. That'll be priceless!

Baxter: OH! OH! OH! Look - dogs!

Norma: Let's get 'em!

[Frenzy ensues as the woman walking the other two dogs has become hopelessly tangled in her tandem leash and cannot get away. I sympathize.]

[Walk walk walk]

Baxter: Wait up!

Me: C'mon, Baxter.

Baxter: But you can totally still smell where the dead pigeon was the other day!

Me (walking): Let's go!

Norma: Sorry, dude.

Baxter: Yeah, she's just no fun.

[Walk walk walk]

Baxter: Look! Kids! Pet me! Pet me! Pet me!

Kids (ignoring Baxter): ...

Baxter: Aw...

Me: Sorry little guy. They have to go to school.

[Walk walk walk]

Norma (approaching the berserk house): There he is! There he is! [circle circle yank] There he is! There he is!

Baxter: Look - he's almost over the fence! [strain strain]

Me (choking up on the leashes to avoid having my arms yanked out of their sockets): C'mon guys.

Construction Workers: Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha haaaaaa!!! Mire - es la chica estúpida con los perros!! Esos perros andan la chica!!

Me (smiling weakly): ...

[Walk walk walk]

Baxter: Look - here comes that asshole kid on the bike. Let's step in front of him right at the last minute.

Me (pulling the dogs off the sidewalk): Don't even think about it, Baxter.

[We arrive at the back yard gate.]

Norma: Okay - you go this way and I'll go the other way and we'll see if we can get her to fall down.

Me (not falling for it): Are you guys hungry?

Dogs: FOOD! FOOD! FOOD! [Bounce bounce bounce] FOOD! FOOD! FOOD!

Me: I heart you, doggies!