Fighting with the pizza guy

Ordered from Pizza Pizza tonight. The elderly delivery guy forgot to bring the two-bite brownies so he promised to come back with them in a few minutes. Promised to come back with TWO of them, to make up for the inconvenience. Cool — free brownies.

Here’s the funny part — He wanted to pay for me to eat at a restaurant of my choice. (His accent is thick so it took a few minutes to clear that up.) It turned into a fight to get him to leave it with just the extra bag of brownies. In the end, I had to claim that I don’t leave my apartment to eat out and I got a hug and a kiss on the cheek instead, along with the assertion that I was his favourite customer. Now, I’m thinking that he may have been hitting on me — or else he thinks I’m housebound and in need of meals on wheels.

I’m afraid to order from Pizza Pizza again.

Have a happy, happy, HAPPY period!!!11!!!!

A friend forwarded a letter supposedly sent by a woman to Procter and Gamble, the makers of Always pads. The letter allegedly was “PC Magazine’s 2007 editors’ choice for best webmail-award-winning letter.”

Dear Mr. Thatcher,

I have been a loyal user of your Always maxi pads for over 20 years, and I appreciate many of their features. Why, without the LeakGuard Core™ or Dri-Weave™ absorbency, I’d probably never go horseback riding or salsa dancing, and I’d certainly steer clear of running up and down the beach in tight, white shorts. But my favorite feature has to be your revolutionary Flexi-Wings. Kudos on being the only company smart enough to realize how crucial it is that maxi pads be aerodynamic. I can’t tell you how safe and secure I feel each month knowing there’s a little F-16 in my pants.

Have you ever had a menstrual period, Mr. Thatcher? Ever suffered from “the curse”? I’m guessing you haven’t. Well, my “time of the month” is starting right now. As I type, I can already feel hormonal forces violently surging through my body. Just a few minutes from now, my body will adjust and I’ll be transformed into what my husband likes to call “an inbred hillbilly with knife skills.” Isn’t the human body amazing?

As brand manager in the feminine-hygiene division, you’ve no doubt seen quite a bit of research on what exactly happens during your customers’ monthly visits from Aunt Flo. Therefore, you must know about the bloating, puffiness, and cramping we endure, and about our intense mood swings, crying jags, and out-of-control behavior. You surely realize it’s a tough time for most women. In fact, only last week, my friend Jennifer fought the violent urge to shove her boyfriend’s testicles into a George Foreman Grill just because he told her he thought Grey’s Anatomy was written by drunken chimps. Crazy! The point is, sir, you of all people must realize that America is just crawling with homicidal maniacs in capri pants. Which brings me to the reason for my letter.

Last month, while in the throes of cramping so painful I wanted to reach inside my body and yank out my uterus, I opened an Always maxi pad, and there, printed on the adhesive backing, were these words: “Have a Happy Period.”

Are you fucking kidding me?

What I mean is, does any part of your tiny middle-manager brain really think happiness—actual smiling, laughing happiness—is possible during a menstrual period? Did anything mentioned above sound the least bit pleasurable? Well, did it, James? FYI, unless you’re some kind of sick S&M freak girl, there will never be anything “happy” about a day in which you have to jack yourself up on Motrin and Kahlúa and lock yourself in your house just so you don’t march down to the local Walgreens armed with a hunting rifle and a sketchy plan to end your life in a blaze of glory. For the love of God, pull your head out, man. If you just have to slap a moronic message on a maxi pad, wouldn’t it make more sense to say something that’s actually pertinent, like “Put Down the Hammer” or “Vehicular Manslaughter Is Wrong”? Or are you just picking on us?

Sir, please inform your accounting department that, effective immediately, there will be an $8 drop in monthly profits, for I have chosen to take my maxi-pad business elsewhere. And though I will certainly miss your Flexi-Wings, I will not for one minute miss your brand of condescending bullshit. And that’s a promise I will keep. Always.

Best,

Wendi Aarons
Austin , TX

As always, I like to know the actual origins of interesting e-mail memes that get sent to me, and this was no different. From Wendi Aarons‘ own blog (tip: do yourself a favour and add her to your weekly rounds), it appears that the rant originally hit the Internet on February 6, 2007, as an open letter on Mcsweeneys.net. As fun a read as it is, there’s no way it ever actually got a PC Magazine Editors’ Choice designation since those are given to products the magazine reviews. After a blog post about the letter got a mention in the Austin Chronicle, Wendi posted the following comment:

Love the Column; Thanks for the Mention
Hey Stephen, I was just reading your column [“After a Fashion,” Arts, Dec. 7] and was shocked to see a link to my Always Maxi Pad letter. Also shocked to see that it supposedly won PC Magazine’s editors’ choice award … I think they forgot to tell me. Anyway, I wrote this last February as a humor piece for McSweeneys.net, and it’s taken on a life of its own. The good news is that Proctor & Gamble no longer puts “Have a Happy Period” on their adhesive strips. I’m taking full credit for that one. Love the column and thanks for the mention!

A couple of people wrote replies to that comment indicating that they were a little disappointed to find out that it wasn’t really an angry letter sent to Proctor and Gamble. *That* surprises me. It reads like a good humour piece. How could you think it was anything but? I’m not sure that anyone actually writing in anger about the words “Have a happy period” on their pads would waste the biting sense of humour evident in Wendi’s missive on a letter that only one person would read. To me, it read like a letter to the editor, which (in effect) it was. And it was brilliant. If you like the tone, check out McSweeney’s continuing series of open letters.

There’s a September 2006 photo of the offending piece of paper on Flickr. I have to admit, I don’t remember seeing that little charmer on Canadian Always products. Then again, I’m usually not in the mood to read it at the time, if you get me. I know that they are definitely not using it now — we just have a visual aid to making full use of the Flexiwings. Nowhere on the packaging is there a reference to “Having a happy period” but rest assured, you can get your daily affirmation on the Always Web site, along with “fun stuff for making the most of it“, including a lovely way to “tell a friend to have a happy period” with a HAHP card. Go ahead! Try it out on your BFF the next time she has her period and then tell us how that worked for you. If you can talk with the breathing tubes in.

Thank heaven for little girls

I was watching “Sexual Secrets” on Slice last night. The episode was “Rock-n-Roll in the Hay”, all about sexuality as it relates to musicians. The first part dealt primarily with the male domination of the rock and roll music genre.

I found it interesting but more than a little disturbing, especially after one of the people being interviewed (I can’t remember his name) actually said that boy bands would continue to be made until God stopped making little girls. The lead-up to that scene and comment had been a discussion of essentially how the boy band “industry” is built on the burgeoning hormones of young girls. At its heart, it’s the prostitution of boys to girls (usually by somewhat creepy older men) for the sake of fame and money.

If you have read some of my earlier posts in this blog, you’ll remember that I’ve posted a couple of times about the UK band McFly. I like their music. But I’ve grown more and more disturbed by their marketing of themselves, how they take advantage of the adoration of their (usually quite young) fans to get them to spend money on more and more things. Who needs one version of a single when you can put out three and get three times the money from your diehard fans. It’s a disturbing trend. It’s not a new one — advertising has targeted young people for decades (especially for junk food and toys) — but it seems to have taken on a very creepy, very coarse overtone in recent years. Perhaps it’s because children and their parents seem to have more disposable income now than they used to have, and the Internet puts merchandise within easy reach of far more of the people with that disposable income than it used to. But it seems as though fame and wealth are no longer enough — we must figure out how to get more fame and greater wealth from your admirers.

It feels a little too close to child abuse for my comfort.

Oh my god

I just realized that my oldest nephew is closing in on 30. How is that possible? I remember babysitting him when he was a baby and now he’s 28 years old. I knew time was passing because one of my youngest nieces, who was born just before I moved here, is now 13 years old. But it really didn’t hit home until I did the calculations today. Shit, I’m old.

The antidote to the horrors of Facebook?

A little 1970s heartthrob action on Youtube. Ah, take me away, Tiger Beat/Teen Beat/16 days of my childhood…

First stop on the reminiscing train is Tony DeFranco and the DeFranco Family singing “Heartbeat, It’s a Love Beat”.

Dig the groovy threads. I had such a HUGE crush on Tony when I was a kid. He was six years older than me, the age of my oldest brother, and I thought he was so mature. Voice like an angel. Awesome head of hair. Bonus that he was Canadian.

Around the same time, there was Bo Donaldson and the Heywoods with “Who Do You Think You Are?”

And “Billy Don’t Be a Hero”

(I’ve so never seen them actually playing — they look like a bunch of goobers, don’t they. They came across much better in the teen magazines. And their music was good.)

Ooh, that led to Paper Lace and “The Night Chicago Died” — my brother had that 45 and I loved the B-side (sing along with me: “Can you get it, when you want it? When you want it, can you put your finger on it?”) Weird, I always thought they were Canadian, for some reason.

Then, oh then, there was Leif Garrett.

He was only four years older than me. My walls were covered with pictures and posters. I really didn’t like the Walking Tall movies but I watched them just for his scenes. And I desperately wanted to learn how to skateboard after he appeared in “Skateboard: the Movie”. (That desire ended the first time I fell and just about crippled myself in the process.)

And let’s not forget Rex Smith. I wanted so badly to be Jessie in “Sooner or Later”.

Hmm, I’m sensing a trend in my crushes — really nice hair.

You never learn anything good on Facebook

I have a profile on Facebook, not because I want one but because I needed it to see something that someone wanted me to see on their profile. Long story. So, I don’t hang out there. I don’t actively seek out people I know to add them as friends. If someone I know finds me, great. (Well, actually, it’s kind of annoying, because it forces me back to Facebook but it isn’t annoying enough for me to not go back, if you get my point.)

Anyway, I got a friend request from a name that seemed familiar the other day. Couldn’t place it until tonight — I still can’t picture her but I remember where I know her from, and I remember the name. So I accepted the request. Then I thought I’d check on a couple of other people I know. That was a bad move. My ex has a very common name, like John Smith, so I never expect to find anything related to him specifically if I Google him. (I’ve Googled just about everyone I know at some point.) Imagine my surprise tonight when I found him on Facebook, of all places — what I can see of his profile isn’t very helpful but the names of the friends in his list tells me all I need to know. His step-mom is there, so are several of the friends he hung out with when I was with him, friends I missed terribly when we split up. (They were his friends so he got custody of them in the split. LOL)

I apparently wasn’t shell-shocked enough by that so I went searching for old colleagues. So many of them are there. It’s like browsing Wikipedia — you start off looking at one thing but get led down the garden path until you’re far, far from home.

I’m absolutely horrified. You can’t unlearn what you’ve learned.

Style gurus

I admit that I’m not the most stylish person in the world. I was pretty well put together when I was younger but I’ve gone for comfort over look in recent years. Frumpy would probably best describe it. But it’s hard to be stylish when you have trouble finding clothes that fit.

As bad as my current style is, though, I would be reluctant to follow the advice of many of the style gurus you see on TV. I’m watching Tim Gunn’s Guide to Style right now. Tim Gunn and his companion, the so-called “style maven” Veronica Webb, have just descended on some woman’s house and stripped her closet. Veronica is wearing this absolute monstrosity of a patchwork yellow dress that looks like it doesn’t fit — the “waist band” is up under her bust at the front but at her waist in the back, and the skirt is very 50s-style — big and poofy — so it kind of makes her look like a little girl playing dress up in grandma’s homemade maternity clothes. Why would you take style advice from someone wearing something that horrific? I’ve had similar reactions to Stacy London on What Not to Wear — sometimes, you wonder what on earth she was thinking when she picked out her clothes (or agreed to wear what someone else picked out) for the day and yet you’re supposed to take her advice? Perhaps I’m not meant to be “in style”.

[Oh. My. God. Veronica's third dress (see photo above) is almost as bad as the first -- same empire-ish waist, huge freakin' Jetsons skirt, seams that don't match, big hand painted polka dots, and some kind of bizarre white furry underskirt peeking out of the bottom. WTF?]

EI woes

Contacted EI the other day. They’re doing their best to make it as difficult as possible for me to actually get benefits. They’ve discounted the first two weeks I was unemployed so my waiting period is weeks 3 and 4. Then they’ve decided to allocate earnings during those two waiting period weeks over the next 4 weeks instead of 3 (because I apparently made too much during one of those weeks). So, I don’t get anything until early June and even then it will be drastically less than expected. Honesty is apparently punished. The guy I talked to it thought it was a compliment to tell me how impressed he was with my knowledge and understanding of how precisely EI was screwing me over (not his exact words, you understand).

I asked him about the pension transfer payment and his response? “We won’t know until you do it.” It might mess your claim up a lot or it might only mess you up a little, but we won’t know which until we’ve seen it. What I wanted was for someone to look at the specifics and at my claim and tell me upfront whether there is any point. But, no, that would be too easy. So, I guess I hold onto things and then, if I decide to take the transfer payment, wait until my claim is no longer active to do it.

%&$*ing Paypal

I went to buy something the other day using Paypal and wasn’t able to. Didn’t realize until I loaded the Paypal site separately that their entire site was down at the time. “Go look at our status information,” it says. The status information didn’t cover that particular day so big help there. Ultimately, I was able to make my purchase later in the day. It took Paypal an extra day to actually decide they’d actually processed the request and send me a confirmation email. Yesterday, I try to pay my Web hosting bill using Paypal. Have a little bit of trouble with the Paypal site during the process (kept coming up with “Retry”) but ultimately, the request goes through, it’s showing in my Paypal account history, and I get returned (as expected) to my Web host’s site. Only problem is that the payment doesn’t appear to have actually made its way from Paypal to the Web host. So I write to the Web host. Their suggestion? To pay it again if it doesn’t come through to them in a day or two. Excuse me? It’s already been processed. Why would I pay you a second time?  No suggestion that perhaps they check from their end to see if maybe they’ve had a problem between them and Paypal. No, just pay it again. So, unless one of them gets their thumbs out of their asses in the next couple of days, I get to file a dispute. Lovely. In the meantime, my Web hosting isn’t getting paid for. For crying out loud, isn’t Paypal supposed to be making things easier instead of adding to my problems?

First a trickle

then a flood.

Spent a few hours entertaining my mother on the phone while my father was out. Then I immersed myself in a flurry of activity — some cleaning, some work on my resume and portfolio, some other online stuff. Now, I’m so tired and just can’t hold onto the positive any more tonight.

Where’s my rock? Who’ll pick me up while I’m holding up the person who usually picks me up? I’m afraid, and I’m not ready to say goodbye.