11.26.08
voyeur beware
My dad bought Ginsu knives in the 80’s after seeing an infomercial. He also bought a Ronco Food Dehydrator, a Ronco Popeil Pasta Maker, a microwave egg cooker, OxiClean, a Pocket Fisherman and not one but two George Foreman Grills. I am sure there was more but these are the items I recall offhand. Now I’m not saying my dad is gullible but he does tend to buy into the ads (literally), his father was exactly the same way and my nephew told me last week that one sleepless night he ordered Mighty Putty and the ShamWow Obviously it runs in the family.
Most recently my dad ordered some weight loss tea. Once again he saw an ad…probably a Google ad since he is online more than he watches the telly these days, proclaiming the health benefits and offering slimness with the consumption of the product. He bought three months worth to give it a shot. One morning they invited us up for breakfast and I asked him if the tea had made any difference. He said “No, I drink it twice a day and I haven’t lost a pound.” I then watched him eat five slices of bacon, two eggs and three pancakes. And I can’t believe he’s not losing weight!
Out of curiosity I surfed for the tea to find out more about it. I found a site that sold the miracle weight loss cure and read a bit about it. It turns out (big surprise) you have to diet and exercise as well. If that was so easy none of us would need a slimming tea. I clicked the red X and closed the window.
Last night the phone rang. The woman asked for me (I always know when it’s a telemarketer because they always fuck up my last name) and immediately she began to read from her script.
She told me that her company wanted to offer me a free month’s worth of this weight loss green tea. I had not even thought about visiting the website until the telemarketer knew my full name, my address, my phone number and my email address. I was sure I didn’t fill anything out when I looked at the page but I asked the woman for the name of the product again just so I could check to be sure. I was going along with it thinking “Cool, I’ll try this shit for free.” but there is no such thing as a free lunch, or a free tea. The woman went on to tell me that I’d have to pay so much for shipping and handling and that every month I’d get another shipment automatically until I cancelled it.
I cancelled it then and there. I joined that fucking Columbia House CD (it might have even been cassettes) club back in the olden days and they sent me shit and billed me for it long after I fulfilled my contract. It took telling them I was dead to get them to stop sending me shit. I think it was the Kenny G CD that sent me over the edge to my untimely demise. I learned way back then not to ever sign up for any ‘automatic shipments’ of anything. Oh wait, no, I didn’t learn then, I learned after I got roped into the recipe of the month club. Hmm, no, that’s not right either, after that I was getting some gardening guide thing where they send you so many pages per month to help you on your Mary Mary quite contrary way. Yeah, I think I learned my lesson after that.
The telemarketing lady tried once more to convince me to take the offer but I shot her down.
I went to the website and recognized it as the one I visited last month. I had not entered any personal information. Big brother might be 24 years late but I believe he is alive and well.
This morning I was telling my first client about my freaky tea incident and I wondered aloud whether all the sites I visit know I’m there. “What if ‘they’ know what I am surfing for, what if they know what porn I’m checking out?”
She laughed and said, “Maybe next time you’ll get a call from Red Tube telling you you have freakish viewing habits.”
“Redtube?”
“Hahaha, it’s a porn site like You Tube.”
I laughed and made a mental note to check out Red Tube.
Fortunately I don’t have the patience for downloading porn on dial up so I doubt there is anything incriminating on my computer and even if there was I would blame my husband for it.
I have a friend who is completely terrified of the internet and all of the scary stalkery and identity thievery and banking information borrowing that it entails. Not to mention the kiddy porn, she won’t email photos or put them on Facebook because some perv will surely steal them for wank material. I always thought she was too paranoid but maybe I am not paranoid enough.
Seriously, I wonder how concerned and how careful we have to be. Is it safe to send credit card info in emails? Is it wise to shop online at all? Should I… er my husband be more careful about what erotica he peruses? Should I remove the photos of my husband in drag from my Facebook album in case he unwittingly becomes someone’s tranny boy toy?
I will be more cautious about the sites I check out, we get enough telemarketer phone calls (despite being on the ‘do not call’ list) from random people, I’d rather not be solicited because I clicked on the wrong page as well. If I want to buy something I will do so of my own accord, don’t call me, I’ll call you. I do not want appreciate click on us and we’ll call you! Maybe someone should do an infomercial for a product that keeps the marketers away, like bugspray or an airhorn… I’m pretty sure if Ron Popeil was selling it my dad would buy one… or two.
11.23.08
drag strip
It was all our niece Kayla’s idea, this was her first year without the tricking and the treating so instead she thought dressing her uncle up as a chick for Halloween would be the best way to spend the evening. We weren’t going out, we weren’t even drinking, we were just hanging out with Trix and the kids at their place. It’s kind of fun for us because there aren’t any children within about 15km of our house so we need not even buy candy, which is good because we’d eat it all and then have to replenish it again (and again) before the 31st even arrives. There is some brilliance in the Halloween treat marketing, I do believe that is precisely the reason the shit gets put on shelves at the end of August.
He ‘borrowed’ a pair of my panties. Yes my derriere is slightly (ahem) larger than his (he told me yesterday my ass is ‘bountiful’ and didn’t understand why I hit him for saying it) but there was a time not so long ago when it was not as much larger as it is now, it was the undies from that time that I gave him. Why did he need panties? He said he’d not wear a dress that showed the lines from his boxer briefs.
Wait, it gets worse, er better, er worse.
We found him a pair of tights but they weren’t opaque enough. “You can still see the hair on my legs, that’s not authentic.” He whined. I knew my sugar was safe as he’s got zero pain tolerance but I am pretty sure if he had wanted to shave his legs I’d have been done. Kayla found a pair of leggings and they made him happy…no more hairy legs. Let that be a lesson to all of you ladies who are working on your winter coat gams for cold weather warmth. If you want to wear a dress leggings will hide your razor/wax/sugar avoidance.
The bra was a whole other challenge, no matter what we stuffed in it ‘they didn’t feel real’. I wasn’t sure who he thought was going to be groping him to make that judgment but I discovered later that he was all about feeling himself up anyway… he also spent far too much time touching his ‘clit’. We settled on balled up facecloths for boobage stuffing and with their help his C cup runnethed over. I had to keep adjusting the straps for him, he kept hiking them up like the bra was a backpack.
Kayla picked out a pretty pink and purple summer dress for my husband to wear. He preferred the flowered halter dress he saw in her closet but conceded when he realized his bra straps would show.
“I need heels!” he panicked.
“We’re staying in the house, you don’t need shoes.” I told him.
“It won’t look authentic without heels.”
Trix found him a pair of pink fuzzy slippers and that satisfied him until he looked in the mirror.
“I hate this town.”
“Why now?”
“Because there is no Payless here. If we had a Payless I could buy some size 11 wide women’s heels. Nobody in this town would carry that size.”
I just shook my head.
The wig was of the Hanna Montana variety. It made him look a little like a long haired David Spade… who kind of resembles a chick himself. Heiny shaved his face with a blade that morning so he’d have that ‘smooth ladyface’ but it still took half a bottle of cover-up to hide his shadow. We put all of the make-up on pretty thick and by the time we were finished he really did look like the Miley Cyrus alter ego… the thirty year old, worn out used up version of her anyway.
He looked in the mirror, posed, gave himself his best sexy growl and said “I look good!”
He didn’t really. In fact for a good looking guy he made a seriously ugly woman. Even his mother refused to acknowledge him when we took him trick or treating to her place. She looked right past him and wouldn’t even talk to him out of sheer embarrassment I am sure. Apparently she was unaware of the phrase ‘a face only a mother could love’ .
It took two days for the ‘guyliner’ to wash off. He had a bit of an emo look and he liked it. He even suggested maybe he should buy some eyeliner of his own and he even go to the Mac counter at the Bay and have them do a full on make over on him. I think not.
Heiny says next year he’ll get a better wig and next year he’ll buy proper heels and next year he’ll get a sexier dress and next year he’ll have water balloons for tits and on he goes. At least he was only thinking about cross dressing for Halloween.
Or so I thought.
Last Friday when I came home from work he started giggling.
“What’s so funny?” I asked him.
He pulled his pants down just enough to give me a glimpse of his underwear, which were not his underwear, they were my panties, the same ones he wore for Halloween. I could understand if they were silky lacy things but they were pretty basic cotton Fruit of the Loom bloomers. I shook my head. “You’re not right.”
“It’s no big deal honey,” he assured me “They’re unisex.”
“Yeah, that’s why there are little purple flowers on them.”
“Those aren’t flowers, they are little yellow circles surrounded by little purple circles. They’re a little bit big for me though, I wonder what size panties I’d need.”
I just shook my head again hoping this was just for shock value and that the novelty would wear off. Yesterday however when I was putting laundry away I discovered that when he did the last load of laundry he put ‘his’ pair back in his own unmentionables drawer.
I told our son about the incident and he said “Remind me when we talk on Sunday that I want to ask you something about dad.”
“Yes, he is your real father.” I assured him apologetically.
Turns out the Boy wanted to ask what he should buy his dad for Xmas., I suggested something manly because we’d both prefer Victoria’s Secret remain a mystery to that particular Heiny. I’m afraid we brought his inner drag queen out of the closet and I am not sure how to put him/her back. Worse yet, now when he tells me he wants to play ‘hide the sausage’ I won’t know if he wants sex or if he just wants to feel pretty.
11.19.08
back in the salad again
Forgive me bloggers for I have sinned, it’s been three weeks since my last submission. It really is only a sin of omission technically so I think I’ll skip the penance although I certainly could use some discipline.
Ok, so here’s the deal, my computer is being cunty. Thrice I have written blog posts and thrice the bitch has frozen up and I have lost everything. Like it isn’t bad enough I have to deal with the cold of winter, now I was getting a chill from my computer as well. I even wised up and learned to save right away but apparently this program (Pages) has no auto save so all of the additions, changes and edits I made after the original saving were lost. The same thing also happened to my nanowrimo project, I felt so disheartened by the whole thing I just scrapped it. I’ve also been working on business cards and for months now it’s been a huge source of ass pain because no matter what I do to what is on the screen when I print my design on the perforated paper none of the lines match up. Business cards with half of the information cut off are only useful for fire starter.
It was making me really fucking crabby and I don’t know anyone who could help me so I was winging it and losing. And can I just say that ‘help’ is really of no assistance at all?! Combine my computer illiteracy with the far too regular freezes and the mess that things are in offline and I just couldn’t deal anymore. I needed to step away from the ledge and the computer for a while.
The really bad news is that my husband was off work again last week, another shutdown. We’ve recently received word that the mill will also be down for three weeks in December… Merry fucking Christmas… which brings the year’s total to twelve weeks. Yep, that’s a grand total of three months this year without a paycheck. Imagine if you will for a moment what your life would be like if the main breadwinner in your household lost that much income. Oh wait, it gets worse. What I do for a living is not an essential service so when people are struggling or the economy is heading for the shitter they cut back on things like hair removal and pedicures. Our business has been cut nearly in half.
Now I know a lot of people have it far worse than we do. We’ve managed (somehow) to make all of our payments and we’ve not resorted to eating the dog… yet… but we and our credit cards are straining under the financial burden. Heiny has been looking for other work but pickin’s are slim at the moment as we are all in the same leaky sieve of a boat.
At least we have our health.
Sort of.
His Highness went for his surgery consultation yesterday, he’s getting his hernia (I call it Harold the Hernia) removed and they are doing a scope up his ass to try to see what’s going on up there. My guess is that some squatters have moved in and are having wild colonic parties.
I had a monster headache through most of September and October and was at the point where I was ready to go all hari kari and just be done with it. Apparently however I have no friends who’d strike the final blow for me, not that I had a sword either but I’d have happily used a butter knife for the beheading at that point. I was a mess, I couldn’t concentrate, I had no ambition and I guess I was more than a little stressed, tensed and depressed. I felt like my entire world was circling the drain and I needed to find something to hang onto before the septic system swallowed me whole. There were too many things in my life that I had no control over but there were a few things I could at least make a conscious effort to change. So I did.
I am back on the helliptical which I (not so lovingly) refer to as ‘that fucking thing’. I will never love exercise but I knew that if I didn’t do something more physical than typing that there could very well be a heart attack with my name on it in my future. I ride(?) the fucking thing for thirty to forty minutes five days a week (I shoot for every day but sometimes it just doesn’t happen) and then I do free weights, crunches and stretches for another half hour or so. I am loathe to admit that I feel better because of it but the headache is gone… although the ache in my knees has generously replaced it.
It was also time to do something about my diet so I am once again livin’ la vida low carb. Those lovely starches that are so satisfying and tasty only add more ass to my assets and they also make me feel crappy so I cut them out. I’m not doing atkins or south beach or any ‘plan’, I just stopped eating sugar, bread, rice, potatoes and pasta. I’m subsisting on mostly protein and vegetables with a little bit of fruit and very little dairy, mostly in the form of cheese. At this point the only thing I’m feeling like I am missing is Cheerios (of all things) and maybe eventually I’ll add cereals back into my (very limited) repertoire. For the moment however this is working for me and I’m feeling pretty good physically and I’m not beating myself up about it anymore which is a huge step for me.
I had made great strides (literally) in getting my shit together but I was still pissed at miMac for the freezing and the fucky printing of my business cards. The other morning I woke with an idea (usually my best ideas come when I am sitting on the toilet, it’s where I work shit out) to hook up the old PC, do my cards on there and then transfer the PDF to the mac with my usb stick (the disc drive on the PC is hooped). If I could print the cards that way I would at least know if my problem was printer related or if it was a mac issue.
It worked.
So I still don’t know why my computer is brainfarting but at least now I can do what I need to do until someone smarter than me (anyone) can figure it out and tell me how to fix it. Life is not great yet by any stretch but I’m feeling less like I am flailing and I’m grateful for the little victories. Everything else is up to the universe and all we can do is keep plugging away and hope that 2009 will see our ship come in and with a little luck we won’t be waiting at the airport.
