Keriosity

Every once in a while, more frequently than I’d like to admit, I have what I refer to as a “Dumb-Ass Hour”. It’s not always an hour exactly, but during that time, I become a total Dumb-Ass. Nothing I do works right, I usually end up getting injured, and if anyone were to film me during the Dumb-Ass Hour, I would certainly win $10,000 from some televised home video show.

Last week’s Dumb-Ass Hour occurred while I was going to Santa Monica to hit the Kiehl’s store before it closed and then to meet friends for dinner nearby. It began as most Dumb-Ass Hours do - with a makeup mishap:

6:15pm: I dropped a mascara wand onto my shirt while doing my makeup and spent 10 precious minutes trying on other tops until I found a suitable replacement.

6:25pm: I started my car and realized I had 15 miles until I would run out of gas. This was enough to get me to Santa Monica and back, but I didn’t want to push it, even though I was running very late and Kiehl’s was closing in 35 minutes.

6:30pm: I stopped at the gas station for a splash-n-go (put in $10 of gas to get me through the night) under the watchful eyes of some people waiting at the bus stop a few feet away. I have no idea why they were watching me. Perhaps they were wishing they owned a car.

6:33pm: I started the car and saw that I now had 11 miles until I’d run out of gas, even though I had just put 4 gallons in. (at least 70 miles worth) ?!

6:34pm: I got out of the car again, opened the gas cap again, used my Amex card again, while getting quizzical looks from everyone waiting at the bus stop. A “Please pay cashier inside” message appeared on the pump. I didn’t have time for this! I put my Visa card in. “Please pay cashier inside.” I let fly several expletives, mostly to offend the bus stop people. I decided to drive to another gas station.

6:37pm: 200 feet from the next gas station, the car next to me honked. “Your gas cap is hanging out!” I never do that! But during Dumb-Ass Hour, anything can happen.

6:45pm: With a full tank of gas, I was on my way and I had 15 minutes until Kiehl’s closed. I would barely make it.

6:58pm: After almost running down two women in a crosswalk (”Outta my way! Moisturizer emergency!”) I ran into Kiehl’s, grabbed the products I needed, paid, and headed for the door, which I almost smashed my face into because they had just locked it for closing time.

7:05pm: I parked at the restaurant and walked across the street to Starbucks, since I was 55 minutes early for dinner. (Moisturizer waits for no woman!) I tripped in the middle of the street and hurt my ankle, while getting honked at for not walking faster. Damn my new boots!

7:10pm: I ordered a gingerbread latte - my newest favorite espresso drink. As I opened my wallet to pay, I sent about 100 coins raining down onto the floor. A nice old man helped me gather them up.

7:14pm: I received my latte and found the only empty seat, which was right near the drafty door. I started to sit down. While doing so, I tugged at the back of my sweater in an attempt to avoid flashing my underwear (low-rise jeans) but instead, the front of my sweater popped down, flashing my bra - and let’s not forget I was near the drafty door. I scanned Starbucks to see if anyone noticed. 5 UPS guys were waiting for their after-work coffees. They noticed.

7:15pm: Dumb-Ass hour concludes with me burning my mouth on scalding hot latte.

As Dumb-Ass Hours go, this one was rather normal, except for the part where I flashed all of Starbucks. Accidental flashing is rare, thank god.

Emil suggests that when I’m having a Dumb-Ass Hour, I need to just stop what I’m doing and take a few minutes to refocus. That is MUCH easier said than done because Dumb-Ass Hour always occurs when I am on a tight schedule. And - Dumb-Ass Hour is equally as much about the universe plotting against me as it is about my own clumsiness, so taking a moment to refocus will only help me so much.

I don’t think Emil has ever had a whole Dumb-Ass Hour. He’ll have a Dumb-Ass Five Minutes, which usually results in some sort of gadget being thrown across the room. Then one of us, usually me, will have a Replacement-Gadget Ordering Hour. This may seem rather costly, but during a recent Dumb-Ass Hour I caused $2000 worth of damage to our car in front of an audience of pedestrians, so replacing a cordless phone or remote control is really no big deal and it’s much less embarrassing.

Although knowing my luck, when the next Replacement Gadget is delivered, the UPS guy will recognize me from Starbucks.

I shop, therefore I am.

I am Woman, see me shop.

You see these little mantras embroidered onto pillows, or stenciled on bookmarks, or bedazzled onto anything fabric, which I guess is evidence that women truly do love to shop and that some of this shopping takes place at craft stores. I am not like these women - neither in their love of shopping nor embroidered mantras.

I am somewhat of an enigma. I am a woman. I hate to shop. There are a few of us out there. We keep this shameful secret to ourselves mostly. The few times we confide in friends or coworkers usually results in the other person insisting that they can miraculously fix us by forcing us to go on a shopping spree. How a “spree” would fix my hatred of shopping is something I will never understand. If your friend disliked the ocean, would you take her 10 miles out on a sailboat and toss her in? Of course you would! It makes perfect sense!

I’m not exactly sure how shopping and I became estranged because I used to enjoy it quite a bit. I remember shopping for school clothes with my mom and sisters, and even though we had to be cost-conscious and sometimes that meant sticking to the clearance rack - it was fun. Picking out new things, trying everything on, seeing how many different outfits I could arrange from just a few pieces, bringing everything home and deciding which clothes I would wear first - it was an adventure. I loved it! I continued to love it for many years.

Then somewhere along the way, things changed. I started to dread shopping. Now I almost never go. When did this happen? I think it was right around the time that some marketing genius who failed geometry came up with the SIZE 0. I blame him. (Yeah, you heard me. Him.)

Size Zero. That means no size. There are so many things wrong with this concept that I don’t even know where to start. First of all, what does this say to the person who is the size zero? “You are nothing.”  That’s not very nice. And what about the rest of us who are on our life-long quest to be a smaller size? What are we really striving for - to be nothing? Think about this: we can never attain the goal of nothing. We have already failed. (Which proves my theory that it’s a “him” who did this. Only a man would send us on this self-defeating quest. We would never do this to ourselves. Our self-defeating quests always involve chocolate.)

Retailers are doing a real number on women’s self esteem, pun intended. Men don’t realize this because their sizes make sense. Small. Medium. Large. And pant sizes are actual measurements. Not some random made-up mystery number that, by the way, changes from store to store and from generation to generation. (Marilyn Monroe was a size 16. That’ a today’s size 12.) Adding to the confusion, some stores use European sizes, British sizes, or Italian sizes. (Personally, I don’t like the Italian sizes because those numbers are gigantic!)

Here’s how we can solve the problem once and for all: Get rid of all the numbers. From now on, sizes will be reassigned like this:

0 will now be Feisty
2 will be Hottie
4 will be Minx
6 will be Vamp
8 will be Temptress
10 will be Vixen
12 will be Tigress
14 will be Diva
16 will be Ultimate Sex Goddess…and so on.

Ladies, doesn’t that make you feel better about your size already?

No more will you say “I need all new clothes! I went from a size 6 to a size 10!”

Now, the new improved you will declare “I must go shopping! I was a vamp, but now I’m a vixen!

Just saying it makes you feel sexier doesn’t it? Aren’t we silly to be so obsessed with a number?

As a bonus - it will be less awkward to give old clothes away if you’ve lost weight. That’s always been a tricky situation, hasn’t it.? Rather than appearing to suggest that the new skinny you doesn’t need your fat clothes and maybe your friend could wear them (see? tricky!), you can say “Gee Sue, you’re a temptress right? This skirt would look fabulous on you!”

The system works on so many levels. Notice how the smaller sizes are actually less interesting? Do you want to be a mere Feisty girl or the Ultimate Sex Goddess? Tigresses, be proud! Divas, flaunt those sexy curves!

This is a great idea! This is right up there with my idea for a cross-promotional campaign for Hershey’s and Tampax. (We buy them at the same time anyway, right? Just package them together.)

I feel better already. I am minx, soon I’ll shop. Now I just need a bedazzler…

A few weeks ago, I spent 2 days in Vegas, having a lovely time with friends. And then this happened:

We decided to stop by Haagen Daz in The Venetian hotel for a tasty afternoon treat, when I noticed a large plaster ice-cream cone statue - like Mr. Peanut, but an ice-cream cone. Anyway, it was holding coupons in its hand and without really thinking about it, I go up to take a coupon and of course, like an idiot, it doesn’t occur to me that it’s a person dressed up like an ice-cream cone and just as I reach for a coupon, he snatches his hand away and I jump about 4 feet. And then ALL of the 107 customers in Haagen Daz and the 3 employees, and the thousands of people walking by all start to laugh hysterically and point at me. I was not amused. Yet I played it off - haha, yes how funny. He sure got me! hardy har har.

Well the ice cream cone would not let it go. He followed me into the store and continued to harass me! I tried to have a polite sense of humor about it until I could swear that the little slit where his eyes must have been was pointed significantly south of my necklace, and then I had enough. When he handed me a third coupon, I grabbed onto his hand and insisted “No, really. You can stop now. In fact - seriously! Go. Away. NOW.” He slithered off to embarrass others.

I really hate those kinds of characters and I want to know: What parole board or prison-outreach program casts them? And then I want to know why these weirdos always pick me! Ok, in this case I walked right into it - but normally, they pick on me when I am innocently minding my own business. I’ve had a balloon-animal maker guy actually HIT me in the head with balloons during his little shtick - I guess trying to be funny or flirt with me or something. (My 2-year-old niece was glaring at him with daggers in her eyes. She’s a little protective of me.) I’ve had those living statue people reach out and touch me. I swear that Minnie Mouse was a little too friendly a few years ago outside those spinning teacups. And now I have this pervert rapist ice cream cone incident. Vegas, as you may know, is FULL of living statues, wax statues, plaster statues, all kinds of statues. I was a paranoid post-traumatic wreck for the rest of the trip! Even at a diner in the middle of the desert 190 miles out of Vegas, I kept one eye on my french toast and one eye on the Elvis statue next to me.

I think that these characters can be grouped in with Clowns as a category of weird scary beings who are obviously dangerous and should be avoided if at all possible.

I have met people who were Disney characters, and I don’t include those people in this category (even the lesbian Minnie Mouse, since lesbianism isn’t a form of depravity.) I consider the Disney character people to have a rather odd manifestation of masochism.

The “clown” category people are those who display a form of sadism in which they get off on forcing the shy public to interact with them by inflicting some form of extreme embarrassment - but all from behind the shield of a bizarre costume and a “happy” character. No emotionally healthy person who choose this job. Please - you know it’s true. There could be a whole group of laughing joyful fearless children, and who does the clown pick as his victim? The shy child who is clinging to her mom. We’ve all witnessed this. Ask 10 people on the street what they think of clowns and 8 will shudder. Try it!

No one likes these characters. Have you ever heard anyone say “Oh, look! A funny ice cream cone man! Oooo I hope he comes over to me!”? Never. Everyone reacts the same way: They mutter “oh sh*t, I hate those things.” Then they avoid eye-to-slit contact with the cone and try to leave the area as quickly as possible without attracting any attention. No one wants to play with the creepy ice cream cone.

It is my opinion that only a truly sadistic person with an extremely low self-esteem dresses up as a faceless object and tortures a person in an ice cream store for a good 5 minutes. And only a girl who REALLY wants $1 off her ice-cream purchase and simultaneously takes a leave of absense from her brain would naively reach for a coupon from such a perv. Next time I’ll kick him first and hope he drops all the coupons. Eh, screw the coupons. I’ll just kick him.

(Sunny and 66)

OMG it’s so great! The weather has mostly been beautiful. The people here are super nice. Especially the salespeople! I’ve never been offered so much help carrying things to my car. Ever. Nor have I ever been turned down when offering money to someone for helping me! Can you imagine any of this happening in NY?:

1. Home Depot: I needed plastic lattice to make a dog gate for Milhous - and the end pieces were dirty with rust and runny paint from the shelves they were on, due to the inordinate amount of rain they’ve been having here. When my dad and I pointed it out to the salesmen and asked if they had clean ones, they apologized profusely, searched the store for new ones, called around to other stores in the area to see if they had clean ones, tried to clean the dirty ones with a scrubby sponge and cleaner, then offered to give us the cleaner and sponge for free since they worked. Then, when we were on our way to the register with the dirty end pieces and free sponge and cleaner, they came by with a new package of spotless end pieces that they had found in the back. In NY - we would have immediately been met with a “No, these are all we have.” End of story. Or possibly a “Yo, Tony - we got any more of these in stock?” “No Bill, that’s all we got.” - to confirm the story. Because they work in cahoots, those lazy store people.

2. Gelson’s (supermarket): First of all - at 8pm, I was the only person in the store. Four people asked me if I needed help finding anything. The bag boy asked if I had checked my eggs to see if they had cracks and if they were properly positioned in the carton. I said “uh, well I checked for cracks”. He proceeded to cheerfully check each egg for cracks and correctly turn each one so whatever side is supposed to be up was up. I was so surprised that I didn’t pay attention so I have no idea which is the correct “up” side. Then he offered to walk me to my car since it was dark out and the parking lot was desolate and asked if I needed help loading the bags into my car. Now I was getting offended. I can only take so much niceness in my first week. “No thank you.” I politely said - but really I was thinking “Lookit here, buddy! I’m from New York City. I ward off muggers and rapists every day! I certainly don’t need YOUR help getting to my car here in zero-crime-rate newport beach - ok? Now why don’t you go back to checking the eggs and I’ll go load up my car.” (meanwhile…I was totally on my guard out in the parking lot…more on my paranoia in a later post.) In NY, the bag boy, if there had been one at all, may have noticed that I was alone and the street was desolate (what parking lot?) - and he may have offered to help me to the car, but only to create a distraction with all the confusion of helping me load up the car so he could help himself to my wallet in my purse.

3. Crate and Barrel: Not only did the salespeople nicely wrap all of our new dishes and kitchen supplies into boxes with neat little handles, but they gave Emil directions of how to get the car from way over on the other side of the mall to their door, and told me to flag them down when he got there so they could help me carry out the “heavy” boxes so that Emil wouldn’t have to actually park and risk getting a ticket in the no parking zone. In NY - I’ve left Crate and Barrel struggling with boxes and bags without the guard even helping me open the door. (That’s right, non-New Yorkers.. There are security guards in the stores in NYC.)

4. Every delivery that I’ve scheduled with a time “window” -ex: between 1:00pm-4:00pm, has been either EARLY or right on time! None of this - 4:15pm or exactly 3:59pm crap that I’d get in NY. It’s SO nice to have deliveries and other appointments (cable guy, etc.) be early so I can get on with my day!

There are so many more examples. Every store I’ve been to has had wonderful, helpful employees - I can’t believe people are like this! While I’m enjoying all this friendliness, I’m distrustful. Why is everyone so nice? Obviously they are not out for money, because they won’t accept tips when I offer it.

It’s going to take some getting used to, this new, friendly, relaxed environment. I’ll have to learn to trust that people here will be nice right off the bat, (whether they mean it or not is to be determined.) I’ll have to learn not to have my death-glare at the ready. I have to learn not to walk so fast and cut people off (walking! not even driving!). But so far, having had my coffee and cereal (which is LESS than $6 a box here!) out on my patio every morning and it’s March - I’m not missing NY so much. Other than my family and friends, of course.

So the real question is…which is better financially? CA - where there are great salespeople who make me want to shop (those who know me know - I am not a big shopper), or NY - where my wallet might just as well get stolen anyhow. Hm…something to think about.