Tuesday, August 28, 2007

How much to lease a hankie?

Window-shopping rarely makes me cry.
Scratch that. The only time window-shopping makes me cry is if it is conducted in front of a bakery. That much delicious cake in one location can make the toughest grown woman weep, for shizzle.
But, for the most part, window-shopping is relatively harmless. Often one doesn’t even recognize they’re doing it. Like bum-looking. Apparently I have a problem. Apparently I am a compulsive bum looker. But that’s another story for another day.
Today, however, window-shopping became painful. A lump developed in the throat, the eyes started to cloud — similar to the reaction I have to every episode of Friday Night Lights. Good show.
Leaving the gym this morning I happened to peek into the porthole of easyhome. For those who are unaware, easyhome is a store in which you can lease furniture and appliances. The store’s motto explains it all: Easyhome — get exactly what you want, for as long as you want.
Treat the dining room set as a car, drive it for a while, spill spaghetti on the seat cushions, make sweet, sweet love on its top, whatever. And then, when the terms of the lease are through, you just bring it right on back, trade up so to speak, and get that new table, the fancy one. Maybe this time you can afford the pine instead of the particle board. Taking it back makes so much sense. Think of the cash you’ll save on Lysol wipes, for one.
So, that dining room set will cost you maybe 30-bucks a month and after 72 months you might actually be able to buy it out. Think of the savings!
The reason this wandering and sweaty journalist nearly began to weep in the window was because she spotted something so pathetic, more pathetic than the dining room table, the child’s bunk bed, the microfibre sectional. What this reporter saw was large and shiny, had giant speakers and a fancy, colourful display. It was a home stereo and you could lease it for the low, low price of $7 per month.
SEVEN DOLLARS!
You can’t even buy a foot long sub from subway for $7, but you could have your very own (leased) stereo, pumping the tunes through your leased apartment. But wait; do they lease the CDs too? Nope, but they lease computers so you can download tunes illegally and then listen to them on your leased stereo.
Who are these people who lease stereos? I don’t even understand the purpose of leasing a couch when you can just go to the Brick and buy one without making a payment on it UNTIL 2009!!! Why lease a couch when you can have one for free UNTIL 2009?
I do understand the need for a couch. It’s impossible to welcome couch surfers into your home without one, and it’s tough eating in front of the leased TV if you don’t have a place to park your butt. And speaking of butt, if you lease a couch and use it frequently, it’ll stop perverts like me from staring at your derrière.
But do you need the stereo? Really? Damn that shiznit makes me sad.

Thursday, August 16, 2007

Tacky, as in sticky, as in I hate some people


Cat paw prints on a clean car.
Bullet holes.
A golf ball protruding through a rear window.
All of these things are, apparently, frigging hilarious.
Why are people spending thousands of dollars on their cars and then bedecking them with ridiculous adhesives? Wouldn’t the golf ball detract from the overall look of the pricy minivan? The bullet holes take away from the shine of the $70,000 diesel truck? The cat paws dim the glow on that glorious electric blue PT Cruiser?
What’s next? I’ll tell you what’s next. I’m in the process of designing a Wash Me sticker, it’ll be big and scribbly, and it will look like it has been authentically, digitally scrawled into equally authentic-looking grime.
Then, I’m going to get the patent for a bird crap sticker. And this won’t be any bird crap, this will be bald eagle-sized crap, maybe even great blue heron-sized, falling-from-about-3,000-feet crap. Oh, maybe I’ll also get the birds-eating-cherries crap, and you can buy dozens of the little suckers and coat your car with them. Hilarious.
Then, just for kicks, I’m going to get that drove-the-Coquihalla-mid-winter, rock chip for you to put right smack in the middle of the windshield.
I’m literally dying laughing.
Once I’ve perfected these stickers, I might move on up to the vomit sticker, you know, the night out with the buddies, and thank god I rolled down the window sticker.
And after that who knows. I’ve been discussing the idea of an overall road dust sticker. Trouble is, you actually need to wash the vehicle so the adhesive sticks properly.
There’s always the possibility of the parked-under-a-really-sappy-tree sticker, and the hit by the snowplow sticker, but those have to be worked on by a team of scientists. Ideally those add-ons would be texturized so as to give an authentic representation.
But before that, there might be the parked-too-close-to-the-buggy-rack-at-Superstore sticker — imagine this, a nice white streak of paint to strategically place along the front bumper. People will stop to look, they won’t even be able to stand straight it’ll be so funny. They’ll actually ache for four days after laughing at that sticker. What an ab workout.
Finally, as the piece de resistance there will be the ticked-off-some-guy’s-girlfriend-who-got-drunk-and-keyed-obsenities-into-the-hood-of-the-car sticker.
By the time I’m done, people will wonder why they ever bothered with the Garfield tails stuck in the closed car doors. They’ll marvel at the fact actually had the audacity to place the I Break For Bingo bumper stickers on their rears.
It’s all about stickers people, and since there’s no cure for tacky, I’ll likely make a mint.

Thursday, August 9, 2007

S-s-scaredy cat



Leaning over the knife block pondering which one to choose, I might have thought I was being ridiculous.
I might have considered the task I had set out for myself was a stupid one.
But that didn’t stop me from pawing at the handles, lifting one up, then another before carefully replacing them all and hefting out the sharpener. Good for impaling eyes, I thought, but iffy. Better off going with the butcher knife—wider handle and less persnickety when it comes to inflicting damage. I’ve seen what it can do to a turkey breast.
The butcher knife went back into the slotted block too, though, when I realized with a sigh that indeed, I could not gut a man. Not even if he was big, hairy and smelled bad.
Like the whimpering woman in the horror flick I would stand before him in my transparent cotton nightie chilled by his hulking shadow, and as I struck out with the knife my hand would tremor, belying my fear, my weakness. And he’d snatch the knife from my slick grip and laugh his awful, sand and gravel filled evil laugh.
And I would die there, humiliated, cold and predictable.
So the knife block remained well stocked as I hunted up another, less obvious weapon in the armory that is my parent’s kitchen.
Second drawer from the top I found it. I’ve used it to form the base for gingerbread men, I’ve used it to hammer bread into crumbs, I’ve used it as a makeshift microphone.
Alas, as I brought it to my nose and inhaled deeply, smelling the beginnings of a pie, I knew I might not be able to stab a man, but I could certainly rolling pin him to death. Back off, bastard, or I’ll flatten you.
And so, as I hefted that splinter-filled braining tool from its comfortable drawer, felt its familiar weight in my hands, I shrugged off the thought that, indeed, I was being ridiculous, that a girl is better off being safe and predictable than armed with only baking tools and an imagination, but that rolling pin found its way down the hall toward the bedroom in my white-knuckled grip.
But what led to this foray into the kitchen armory, you ask?
It was an unremarkable Wednesday, hump day for some, just a Wednesday for this married gal living single while house sitting her vacationing parent’s abode.
A long day at work complete she arrived in the family driveway tired and not a little sick at heart, knowing her beloved hubby was far from this place.
But she has belonged to this home since birth. Like a well-loved blankie, the sight of it is comfort; it is the mushroom soup and grilled cheese sandwich of real estate. Sweat pants, a tattered t-shirt and an hour with Oprah were in store for this working gal. Sounds sad and pathetic to some, idyllic to this plain Jane.
The cat rushed out to greet her as she strode, thoughtless up the walk. Her key went in the lock as usual; zombie like, she strode to the alarm panel to enter her code.
But wait. What’s that noise? The panel is beep, beep, beeping a strange tune. Something is wrong.
She enters her code and the beeping stops, but not before she glances at the panel and it reads: “Alarm triggered. Zone 4.”
Glancing around, the now alert plain Jane sucks in a breath, not knowing where the hell Zone 4 is, but knowing deep, deep, deep in her heart that it should not have been triggered.
She grabs for the phone, dials the alarm guy, is put on hold. All operators are busy. Wait your damn turn potential robbery victim.
Eventually the operator comes on and echoes that indeed Zone 4 has been breached. It happened about an hour ago, and no, she too is clueless about the mysterious location of this violated zone.
So, armed with nothing but a psychotic real life kitty, the fraidy cat winds through the house, checking windows, doors, glancing left, right, left, right again. Under beds she peaks, then behind shower curtains. Everything is locked, safe. Nothing touched, save the back garage door which is unlocked and partially ajar.
A scary place in the broad daylight without the fear of attackers lurking in the shadow of a dusty drill press, fraidy cat quickly slams the door, locks it, runs into the house, locks that door behind her, too.
Cat and phone in trembling hands she stops. She keeps hearing the same refrain: “The call’s coming from inside the house…”
She makes dinner undisturbed, watches a muted television, always listening for the creak of the steps, the heavy breathing, and her nose is tuned in to smell the evil before it bears down on her.
Then bedtime, and here I am, feet cold on the linoleum, eyes fixed on the knife block.
Rolling pin as my bedmate, I lay, carefully scrawl a journal entry — perhaps the last. Date it. Close the book.
And as I turn off the bedside lamp, I grip the alarm panic button to my chest and steady myself for a long, long night ahead.