I didn't want to go anyway...

Despite being single and miraculously baby-free, I'm at the point of my life when I have to go to friends' kid's birthday parties. Usually they are a nice excuse to wear a funny hat and get a beer-buzz while gossiping with the other non-moms about which kids are the funny-looking and soon-to-be-gay.

But my neighbor, who I'll call "G", has gone seriously overboard for his son "J"s birthday party.

As you can see from the camera angle, I'm not invited.

Christmas Wish

I wish Christmas could last forever. Not all of it: I could do without the six-day workweek, or the decorations masquerading as religion. But I do like the mall Santa. Who better than St Nicholas's local reincarnation to plead my karmic case to?

"Santa, I've been really good all week: I resisted the urge to write something really funny but a little evil in my blog, and I did a crusty-looking woman's makeup. Can I please have the mechanical bull from Brookstone to round out my robot-arc?" I've attached a photo so you don't get me a thigh-master by accident again.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDZnvkqClmA

It would look so good next to the monkey I got last year for being nice to my boyfriend-at-the-time's mom after she started a rumor that I was pregnant.
http://www.sharperimage.com/us/en/catalog/product/sku__WW258

Oh, and it would be great if people could be nice to each other all year too.

Two women walk into a store

One woman, who I'll call Sidekick, sniffed soap.
The other, who I will call Spanky, asked if we have a bathroom.
“No,” my coworker answered, even though we have an employee restroom. We don’t like it when other people use it: we don’t poop at their workplaces.
“That’s okay I’ll just do it here.”
Time stood still while Spanky took off her jeans ignoring the customers and window looking out at the street packed with shoppers. I got an eyeful of taupe bloomers, turkey neck thighs, varicose veins and tall black socks. Sidekick was the only person not staring open-mouthed as Spanky slipped on the world’s ugliest pants. They looked like Kiki, my patchwork baby blanket, was captured and sewn into pleated pants tucked into camel toe and seven-inch cuffs.
Now Spanky turned to me and asked, “What do you think of these pants?”
I tried to clear my mind in case this woman practiced Occlumency. But I couldn’t shake image of Kiki being hunted by a delusional seamstress on the farm my parents took her to.
I answered, “They’d look better hemmed.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t do that. But please be honest, I may buy them off a woman on the street?”
Honestly, unless Nanette Lapore is having a garage sale, you don’t buy pants off a woman on the street.
“Well then,” I scrambled for a polite answer, “I don’t know what you’d wear them with.” A paper sack?
“Okay I’ll take them back.” Then Spanky dropped hideous trou again. This time I got the front view of years of neglect. She slipped her jeans and Birkenstocks back on and said “goodbye” to Sidekick.
Sidekick chose a couple bars of lavender soap and headed to the register. She said nothing of her friend flashing her crotch to the whole store.
When Spanky returned, Sidekick presented her with a bar of the soap as a gift.
“Keep it,” Spanky said, pushing the soap back to Sidekick. “Call me weird, but I like cheap soap.”
Yeah, that makes you weird.

Drive-Thru Salvation

Maybe it’s the inconvenient truth, maybe it’s the war in Iraq, maybe its because I leave work so deliriously exhausted I’ve confused the mega-church’s Christmas decorations as St Peter’s gate, but I’ve been thinking a lot of the apocalypse and my place in it.

My dad, and spiritual advisor, recommended attending a service/filming at the Broadchurch Network to quench my thirst for salvation. He thought I should bring my busted vacuum in case it too can run on the power of prayer. But, I’m camera shy and work Sundays. Instead, I drive past the church with my vacuum and whisper, “Through the power of Jesus make my vacuum suck and my life not, Amen.”

Night Cream of the Living Dead

As an elderly woman in a Juicy Couture jumpsuit approached the skincare section and demanded moisture, I thought to myself "I wonder if she can blink." I reached for the tiny jar that costs more than my car payment and explained the pure ingredients blended by virgins then flown to the store in a temperature-controlled helicopter by chanting Buddhists.

She had tried it before, but didn't find it hydrating enough. "I have very dry skin," she explained, as though I should give up on trying to sell her moisturizer. She's just too dry to be helped.

"I'm really surprised to hear that. I have dry skin as well, and I use a embroidery needle to scoop out a fleck to spread across my entire body once a week. Its the only moisturizer I need."

Not to be done by hyperbole, she responded, "This jar lasted me one week. I use a pancake spatula to tap it around my eye area and scars." At this point she pointed to her chest, which was unnecessary because they were pointing back at me. "Then I sprits Pam cooking spray all my skin to set it."

"Perhaps you're not drinking enough water. If you're not getting enough water no amount of moisturizer will help."

"Oh, I drink enough water," she said. "Every night I lie in a bath tub of pudding and drink bottles of water. I go through two twelve packs of Evian every night --I can't drink tap, of course-- then toss them into a trash bag. Then my husband hooks me up to my IV bag before I go to sleep in a cocoon made for me by a butterlfies we harvest in our backyard."

"Wow, that must be really hard for you."

"You don't know the half of it," she went on. "I have a handicap parking pass because my skin cracks when I walk. My doctor had to reattach my leg after I walked to the grocery store."

"I've actually seen this before." She scowled-- as much as she could. But I continued, "I think you're actually dead and completely reanimated by moisturizer. I'd recommend the moisturizing oil, it penetrates deeper."

"Oh so that's how it is? Every time I come in here you're going to try to sell me something."

Well, it is a store.

Hello Blogreaders

Are you searching for anything special today?
Too bad, I'm going to talk about what I want to talk about.

I feel I should introduce myself. I'm the girl who helped you make the major life decision to try a sample of a product that you have no intention of buying, but asked me to name every ingrediant in. Hi, nice to see you again.

I've spent the last five years selling stuff that-- I must mention in case anyone makes me-- I truly love and use everyday. But, in real life, I went to school for writing. However, haven't written since I graduated college. Absolutely nothing deeper than to do lists, and thank-you cards flowed from my pen in four years. I wish I had a beter excuse than laziness and the fact that managing a retail store pays more than writing. But I don't. However, retailing it involves mopping and corporate visits. Both of which I suck at.

I'd like to get back to writing, because you all (my dad and one friend who will read this) don't care that I'm drunk and my floor is dirty.

Here's what I can promise in upcoming blogs: generalizations about shoppers, introspective anticdotes about my sad sad life, and typos. I will be very generous with the typos.

Here's what I expect from my readers: a publishing deal and a rich man, both of which are so dazzled by my mediocre writing that I can quit my job and never mop again.