Just 40 more of these bad boys and I got me a necklace!
The World is my oyster.
Welcome to My Street, Anywhere, USA
The World is my ashtray.
The World is my stage.
The World is my toilet.
Just a couple of guys playin' ball.
.
The World is my plaything.
Boy, those trips to the gym are really starting to pay off for me!
The World is my inspiration.
How does the world look to you?
(cue opening song from Legally Blonde)
The day starts like any other day. Maybe you’re in the middle of scrubbing the toilet, or playing with your kids. Maybe you’re working; selling some insurance. (Do you have enough life insurance? Does anyone, really?) You decide to take a little, bitty break and visit your blog – a quick trip to the dashboard on the off chance that somebody, anybody, read your latest offering. It’s not a big deal really; that’s just the fruit of your tortured labor displayed there, brought forth in sweat and agony from the very depths of your soul for the world to read and judge.
Wait a minute. Something’s going on down here on the normally static stats page. You watch your numbers climb steadily, going up, up, up by the minute. You don’t believe it. “Wha??? Who are all these people? Where did the comments come from? Is this really happening?”
Welcome to your magical, Freshly Pressed Day.
On Freshly Pressed Day, you can do anything you want. You walk on bloggy water.
You can roam wherever you want in WordPress, because the world is your oyster. No blog is off limits. You can comment on absolutely any topic, on any other blog, secure in the knowledge that no matter how banal or uninformed your comment, you’re golden. When confronted with your lameness, other bloggers might call you an idiot. You laugh! “Do you even KNOW who I AM?” You subtly steer them over to check out your blog. The sheer number of “likes”; the gigantic wall of comments you have is a foundation wall upon which you stand to project your pithy utterances. You’re untouchable. For today.
I see why Lindsey Lohan would think it was perfectly acceptable to walk out of a jewelry store with some little bauble that caught her eye – she’s a celebrity! Those peon storeowners should thank their lucky stars to have her business. Even if by business we mean shoplifting.
It’s the same on Freshly Pressed day.
“I can’t be bothered with work-a-day concerns,” you tell your office.
“You can feed yourselves,” you tell your starving children.
“I’ve been Freshly Pressed” you crow to the real world folk with whom you are forced to interact. They look at you with shock and awe. At least that’s how you interpret their expressions, which are actually conveying a message of “What-the-hell-is-that-and-who-the-hell-cares-anyway?”
You’re chained to your computer, checking stats and replying to comments like the fate of the free world is riding on your response. Cleverness flows from your fingertips – the muse is upon you and you can do no wrong!
But nothing lasts forever.
When the clock strikes midnight, it’s time to head home from the ball. Your shiny glass shoes turn back into stinky house slippers with holes in the toes. Your gleaming carriage reverts to the rotting pumpkin and filthy rats that are your usual companions.
Now when you check your dashboard, the site stats look like a giant slalom plunging down the side of the Matterhorn. The dizzying heights of Freshly Pressed day only serve to make all the other days before and after look dismally, depressingly insignificant. Like how real cars looks like Matchbox toys to Godzilla.
It’s a scientific fact that bloggers have been known to come down with a painful case of the Blogger Bends from their site stats dropping so radically and so quickly.
You have to make up for lost time at work, and try to repair any damage done to personal relationships on your Freshly Pressed Day. “Sorry” you say, not bothering to try to explain WordPress again, “I was a little loopy yesterday – I think it was a blood sugar thing.”
Your posts and comments are once again subject to the usual laws of blog nature. You can and do come across like a grade-A doofus once more.
You’ll try to recreate the glow of this day forever. You’ll casually drop a mention into every, single, mother-lovin’ post and comment from here on out, until all your readers unsubscribe because you are a boring, self-important buffoon who will NOT stop bragging about getting Freshly Pressed for God’s sake, like she OWNS the damn title!
You’ll still be talking about it years from now to people who assume you’re a couple jacks short of a full deck, and they will respond with: “Uh huh, yeah, you told me about that already, sugar. Now let’s get you out of that soggy Depends and into a fresh one, ok?”
But nobody can ever take away the memory of your magical, Freshly Pressed Day.
The world is facing a cataclysmic problem. The supply of essential resources will shortly be woefully inadequate to meet demand. How will we allocate those resources? Why have pundits been strangely silent on this burning question?
Or course I’m talking about our soon-to-be-scarce treadmill resources.
When I head to the YMCA tonight, I’ll have my pick of treadmills. High supply, low demand. Come next week that will no longer be true. That’s when everyone’s New Year’s resolutions kick in. Same supply, high demand.
Next week there won’t be a parking spot anywhere near the Y. You’ll have to slog a mile through the snow to get to the door.
When you finally get in, you won’t be able to move because of the 8,000 kids running around, hopped-up on soda pop and too much Christmas vacation. While I suspect that their mothers are using the Y as free daycare, I recognize that most also have a noble motive. To prevent murder. Which said mothers are sure to commit if they are stuck in the house, just one more day, with their little darlings.
Worst of all, there won’t be an empty treadmill to be found.
I know that everyone who pays their dues at the gym is entitled to use the facilities. But what about those who paid their dues twice – once in dollars, and once in sweat?
I’m not claiming to be Jacqueline LaLanne – far from it. But I, and others like me, have been loyal. And I say to you, is it fair that faithful customers will be stuck on the sidelines while Flabbies-Come-Lately get all the treadmills?
What is the best way to allocate our precious treadmill resources?
Let’s look at techniques used by other industries.
Airlines use frequent flyer miles to give rewards, including special lines at the ticket counter. This gets the preferred customer through the check-in process quickly. The YMCA could set up something like that. You scan your ID card when getting on the treadmill and earn frequent walker miles. Once you hit a certain number of miles, you get rewards. Like being able to kick January Jills (or Johns) off the treadmill of your choice.
Fine restaurants have to allocate a limited number of tables. They use a free-market approach to determine who gets in and where they sit. Their control is the maitre d’. His criteria? How much you tip.
This could work in the gym. Treadmills would be controlled by the maitre d’sweat. What you get is determined by what you pay.
If your gym is laid out like mine, the following might be a good guide for tipping the maitre d’ sweat.
But it isn’t always about supply and demand, dollars and cents.
An Italian restaurant in New York always kept a table ready for Frank Sinatra. The oyster house in Boston kept JFK’s table empty. These weren’t moneymaking schemes. It was about respect.
So, too, at the Y. The last treadmill in the last row will have a brass plaque and a velvet rope around it. The plaque will proclaim that this treadmill is to be used by only the rarest and most special patron:
“Reserved for those who worked out the week BEFORE Christmas”.
I hope this post from the vault helps inspire you with your New Year’s workout resolution!
Come one, come all - step right up!
My husband’s grandfather was a talented woodcarver. One of his most beautiful creations is a nativity set that my in-laws always display at Christmas time. When our kids were little, they couldn’t resist handling the smooth, wooden figures. Being a wise woman and a thoughtful grandma, my mother-in-law put the heirloom set up high and bought a cheery, chubby little plastic set. She put it on a low table so the kids felt free to interact with these vital characters of the Christmas story.
My daughter Gwen was playing at her grandparents’ house when she was about 3-years-old. After she left, my mother-in-law found she had set all the little figures of the nativity scene in a line. Mary, Joseph, the wise men, all the other animals, even the Baby Jesus were all lined up, single-file, facing the donkey. I asked Gwen what was going on.
“They’re waiting their turn” she said solemnly, “to ride the donkey.”
Best wishes to you and your families for a joyful & blessed Christmas.
The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel—which means, God with us.
Christmas is only a couple of days away. The cards are written, the presents are bought, wrapped and under the tree, and now everyone can sit back and enjoy the season.
Everyone except you.
You haven’t done anything to get ready. You have no presents, no ideas and no money again this year. You’re basically screwed, right?
Wrong!
Don’t despair! You don’t have to spend Christmas in the doghouse, just because you’re lazy and broke. Borrow some of these last minute gift ideas:
1) For the book lover: Does someone on your gift list always have his or her nose in a book? Have you priced hardcovers lately? They can be $30 and up – ridiculous! Trot down to the local library, check out the newest bestseller and wrap it up. When the recipient opens your gift and looks bewildered, start on a long-winded diatribe about what an outrageous assault on the environment it is to cut down defenseless trees for books, and the importance of sharing resources. Add a bit about the great history of Carnegie libraries in America and by the end of your presentation the book lover will be feeling vaguely guilty for ever having bought one. Be a Christmas angel and remind the recipient they’ll incur overdue fines after 2 weeks, so they should read fast!
2) For the wine lover: With your Annie Green Springs tastes, you have neither the budget nor the knowledge to please a true wine connoisseur. Don’t even try. Take a card and write, “Here’s a little something to toast the season”. Wrap up a box containing …2 pieces of dry toast. I suggest using whole wheat bread since wine snobs also tend to be health food snobs. They’ll look like poor sports if they even hint that they would prefer a real gift to your clever gag. (Thrifty suggestion: Cut a square of wrapping paper, fold in half and use this as a card. You can write on the inside and it matches the package for an expensive, coordinated look.)
3) For that special woman: Is there anything a woman loves more than a truly spectacular piece of expensive jewelry? Since THAT’s not going to happen this Christmas, you can still score points by hitting her other hot button: a love of schmaltzy romance. Just write in a card, “You own the key to my heart.” Wrap up a small, jewelry-sized box in which you’ve placed…a key. Any old key will do –could be the key to your locker at the gym. Make sure it’s not your car key, though, as it might be awkward to have to ask for it back at the end of the evening.
4) For your kid: Every parent has experienced this. You get your kid a Suzy Homemaker kitchen, or Little Tykes workbench and they run right by the big, expensive toy to play with the box. Encourage their creative spirit with an Imagination Kit: an assortment of cardboard boxes, rolling paper and toilet paper tubes, rubber bands and other stuff that you have around the house. Pontificate about the importance of creative play, developing building and imagination skills and getting back to basics. This will confuse the in-laws so they can’t be sure if you really believe all that stuff, or you’re just a cheap Scrooge.
5) For the kid’s teacher: Teachers get so much lame junk: ornaments, bubble bath and candles, they could open a gift store. What do they really, really want? Some relief from the unrelenting torment of having little monsters like your kid in their class.
Make up several coupons “Good for one day without Johnny”. On days when your offspring has been acting even more like the spawn of Satan than usual, Teacher can send one of the coupons home with the kid. You promise to keep him home “sick” the next day, thereby giving Teacher a much-needed break. Be careful not to give so many coupons that all his days off catch the attention of the health department or truancy officer.
6) For the brother-in-law: Your lush of a brother-in-law is always getting in trouble with the po-lice. What a hoot when he opens your gift in front of the whole family to reveal a stack of “get out of jail free” cards, taken from a Monopoly game. Even funnier if you could be be there when he tries to use one when he gets stopped, weaving down the road on the way home from the family party.
7) For your pets: What dog doesn’t love a rousing game of “fetch”? Simply gather up a couple of sticks (not too fat), about 1-1/2 feet long, and tie them up with a jaunty, red ribbon. For the cat, smush a page from the Sunday funnies into a ball, wrap in twine or rubber bands, and you’re ready for hours of pouncing play. (These also make thoughtful gifts for the dog or cat lover on your list.)
With my helpful hints, a little bit of cleverness can take the place of true thoughtfulness, money and any real effort on your part.
Merry Christmas, and good luck!
That signature "burp" says you're freshly sealed for all eternity.
I read a lovely post about how “things” are not important in the final analysis. When we die, our stuff will go to people who probably won’t appreciate it like we do. If it’s worth anything, our heirs will sell it. If it’s not valuable, they’ll give it away or trash it. The post was thought provoking and spot-on about what is important in life.
It really ticked me off.
I can’t take it with me? Wanna bet? Just watch me.
I’m not taking any risks with my truly important belongings. That’s why I’ve pre-ordered the Eternally Fresh Doublewide model from Tupperware’s new coffin collection.
Here are just a few of the things that are coming with me:
Earn extra cash hosting Eternal Freshness Funeral parties!
These are just a few of my prized possessions, along with pictures and videos, and I’m not going anywhere without them. They’re going on The Final Trip with me unless I get some assurances that this stuff will be treated with reverence after I’m gone (and by that I mean affidavits written in blood and notarized by a supreme court justice.)
Come to think of it, what if the ancient Egyptians got it right, and we need to bring everything we’ll need into The Great Beyond? I’ll want more than this sentimental stuff. If any of you happen to be at my funeral, please toss in some bags of Reese’s peanut butter cups, my Pink Floyd, Yes and Emerson, Lake and Palmer CDs, and a couple of cases of cheap Muscato, ok?
Be sure to check out the post about Elizabeth Taylor that inspired this one, by Harper Faulkner at the “All Write” blog. He’s a gifted writer as well as a good sport.
Support your local eggnog farmer!
My sister-in-law, Lisa, just announced she is starting a diet. With 3 weeks to go until Christmas.
This is wrong on so many levels. Besides the masochistic overtones, we have to consider how such a move might affect the nation’s economic recovery.
Lisa just wants to look hot for New Years Eve. But she may be starting a dangerous trend. Perhaps I can help her to see the bigger picture – what economists call the unintended consequences.
Seasonal industries have just a small window of opportunity to make sales. (i.e. yellow marshmallow chickees that can only be sold for 1 week before Easter.) In December, fattening Christmas food companies are scrambling to make their budget goals.
Take eggnog. Its rich, creamy goodness is almost synonymous with Christmas. But where does it come from? Family farms in the heartland keep herds of special, eggnog-producing cows just for the Christmas season. No eggnog, no eggnog farms.
All the farms will be sold for shopping malls, the farm children will have to leave the land for New York to become actor/model/waiters and the cows will be processed into McBurgers. Do you want to be responsible for the end of the family farm in America, Lisa?
And what about that company that makes those chocolate-covered cherries that you can get for $1 at Big Lots and other fine emporiums? They do all their sales this month. Does it occur to you, Lisa, that the firm that makes those has employees? If health-conscious, get-in-shape people don’t buy those candies, all the chocolate-covered cherry employees and their families, some of whom might have lame children who use crutches, will be out on the streets. Just in time for Christmas, you Scrooge!
These are just a few of the businesses that would be affected. There are anise-flavored cookies, monastery-made bourbon fudge and whisky fruitcake, and candy canes. I’m sure we could come up with lots of examples.
Sure, tofu sales will go up. But that won’t increase jobs. There is such a huge surplus of tofu just sitting around on the bottom shelf of the refrigerator case in the grocery store produce section (often right under the Bleu Cheese crumbles, ironically), we could go years without making any more.
And what about after Christmas? In the natural order of things, you sign up for diet and exercise programs in January. If nobody is overindulging in December, no one will be repentant and resolved to change in January.
80% of the YMCA’s income is derived from initial membership fees garnered in January. They can’t rely on the monthly fees, because those dry up in March. That’s when the new members cancel, although they actually stop working out after only 2 weeks. (The Y does get residual income from all the new members who forget they signed up to have the dues automatically deducted from their bank account. They can end up paying for years after their actual 2-week attendance is over.)
Eat, papa, eat!
Do you want to be responsible for closing the doors on a fine, old institution like the Young Men’s Christian Association? And then what? Our nation’s young men will be out on the streets, joining gangs, becoming hooligans, and not being Christian.
Nutrisystems will go back to using their food as industrial lubricants, Jenny Craig will have to get a job as a brownie taster and South Beach will be deserted. Dr. Atkins will turn over in his grave!
(“America the Beautiful” starts softly in the background).
We are trying to climb out of a terrible recession right now, Lisa. Our president, and our congressmen and women, are working hard to get this economy back on track
(for amber waves of grain…)
It is the duty of every American to help in this struggle. If you think your hot-ness is more important than your country, Lisa, keep up the pre-Christmas diet. Help put thousands, nay millions of our fellow Americans out of work.
But as for me and mine, we love the U.S. of A., and we will support her!
(music builds to a crescendo, “from sea to shining sea!”, I get up and walk out like that scene in Animal House where Dean Wormer revokes the Delta’s charter because they have been on double-secret probation ).
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go buy some peppermint stick ice cream!
This post, my first ever to be Freshly Pressed, was lifted from the vaults for your holiday enjoyment. You’ll be happy to note that Lisa has seen the light this year, and is doing everything she can to support the eggnog farmer. Hope all of you are doing your share.
A little old lady out for a Sunday drive.
I think I may have an unusual form of Tourette’s Syndrome. Those who suffer from Tourette’s are plagued with uncontrollable physical tics and “the spontaneous utterance of socially objectionable or taboo words or phrases.” In other words, they swear like troopers.
My attacks are infrequent and highly situational. Here are the triggers that might set me off:
I find a vile stream of invective spewing forth from my proper self without my knowledge or consent. In the worst cases (like if another driver pulls in front of me and then stops to turn left) the obscenities may be shouted with vigor.
I know better. I am a lady, born and bred. I make it a firm rule to avoid crude talk and behavior, and I would never swear in public. So why does this happen? Maybe it’s a built-in safety valve that allows me to let off steam before I explode.
While I can’t control the impulses, so far I have been able to manage the outbreaks. The attacks only occur when I’m by myself, or in the presence of my cat, Beeby. She is pretty blasé about it and I know she won’t tell.
I’m afraid that when I’m really old, all my inhibitions will be knocked down by senility and I’ll shock the socks off the aides down at the Shady Acres Retirement Home. “Did you hear that old bat in 201A? She’d make a longshoreman blush!”
I’m not proud of this little character flaw; so let’s just keep it between ourselves, shall we? After all, it’s nobody else’s @#!$%& business.
Thanks to People of WalMart for the cast member photo.
Most Americans have been to Wal-Mart. But you haven’t truly experienced it until you see Wal-Mart, The Christmas Musical. I attended a performance just a few days ago.
The entire play takes place in a Super Wal-Mart. It is Sunday afternoon during the busy, holiday shopping season.
Here’s the story in a nutshell. Our heroine, a young ingénue who looks almost exactly like me, visits the Land of Wal-Mart. She has been sprinkled with holiday cheer fairy dust and sent on a quest. She must find a magic wand that will reanimate the Christmas tree lights when half of each strand has gone out (kind of like a Christmas light defibrillator). Then she must get checked out and back to her car before the dust wears off and she turns into a mean, bitchy old crone.
During the prelude we were treated to Mariah Carey’s spiritual take on “Santa’s Got A Booty Call (So You Better Be Naughty!)”.
There wasn’t a dry eye in the place when one of the female leads, imaginatively costumed in black stretch pants and a shirt cut low enough to reveal a pair of angels tattooed on the upper slopes of her…charms, softly crooned a simple ballad to the children gathered around her cart: “I TOLD You 20 Times”.
“I TOLD you 20 times you gotta be 8 years old before Santa will bring you Call of Duty. I’m going to have your daddy (Rodney, that guy whose staying with us and kinda like your daddy) WHUP YOUR A** if you ask me ONE more time!”
I wasn’t the only one who left the show singing THAT moving tune.
The children’s choir almost stole the show with their rousing hit, “I Want THAT!” The lyric was not complicated – only “I Want THAT”, over and over – but the performance elevated the words to art. The volume of their childish cries built and built to a mighty crescendo. The number ended with the whole choir falling to the floor and kicking its collective heels. Unforgettable.
The Greeter’s Gospel Choir’s a cappella rendition of “Go Tell It On The Mountain (The Holidays Are Here)” had everyone clapping along. The reworked lyrics explained in an uplifting, catchy way why saying Merry Christmas at the door would be the same as forcing shoppers to join a church and submit to full-immersion baptism in order to get in the store. Entertaining and really thought provoking.
But the showstopper was the big production number finale.
I took a couple of dance classes as a kid, so I’m familiar with steps like the flap-ball-change. But I’ve never seen the moves the Wal-Mart Shoppers Dance Troupe perfected for this extravaganza, a routine they call the Oblivious Shuffle.
Each shopper/dancer leaned on his or her cart and pushed it slowly, oh so slowly, back and forth across the stage. Their shuffling gate kept one shoe (or house slipper, as the case may be) on the floor at all times. The shuffling feet made a “shush, shush” sound that underscored the “squeak, squeak” of their unoiled cart wheels. The occasional crash of colliding carts played like cymbals in the composition.
About half of the dancers had cell phones pressed to their ears. One at a time, each would burst into song with lyrics like “…so that witch he married said they couldn’t take the kids Christmas Eve and I told her if you think I’m going to pick them up on HIS weekend, you can just tell their dad…” Their solos were incomprehensible, one-sided conversations when taken by themselves. Together, they wove a timeless Christmas story.
The dancers went through their movements with vacant, glassy stares that gave the illusion that they were totally unaware of everyone else around them.
Think of Night of the Living Dead as a ballet.
Meanwhile, the young ingénue wove her cart skillfully in and out of the shuffling throng, trying to get to the registers. The checkers each turned their lights off as she approached, crying “price check on 10″, “change needed on 5”, “register frozen on 8“ in a surprisingly harmonious medley. Everyone held their breath when a determined shopper with 2 carts piled high cut in front of our heroine in the “15 items or less” line, but there was no collision – it was all just part of the magical show.
I don’t want to give away the ending in case you decide to see it. Suffice it to say our ingenue bore a marked resemblance to the apple-wielding hag in Snow White as she hobbled to her SUV when the curtain fell.
All 3 of my then-readers seemed to enjoy this post last year. Hope you do, too.
Michigan suggests Wisconsin subtract 4 fingers.
A new Wisconsin ad campaign has residents of Michigan saying “hands off our motto”.
The Wisconsin Department of Tourism’s website features a picture of the state’s outline crafted to resemble some sort of bizarre, knitted Elephant Man-esque mitten. Wisconsin seeks to lure winter visitors with the graphic. http://www.travelwisconsin.com/
Michigan has long laid claim to the title “The Mitten State”, for obvious reasons. Michiganders learn to navigate using their right hand to represent the lower part of the state before they get to kindergarten. Advanced lessons on use of the left hand to represent the Upper Peninsula are not covered until later grades.
In an AP article printed in the Washington Post, a Wisconsin Department of Tourism spokeswoman admitted, “We’re not the Mitten State. Michigan, they can own that.” Not content to leave well-enough alone, the functionary continued with “We want to be known as the Fun State.” This is clearly a taunt implying that eating cheese in the snow is somehow more fun than all the great things one can do in Michigan.
Things got ugly at a local tavern when Michiganders and Wisconsinites squared off over the mitten controversy. Tempers were exacerbated by the Michigan State Spartans football team’s loss on Saturday to the University of Wisconsin Badgers. The considered opinion of most people interviewed by this reporter, is that a questionable call late in the game stole a trip to the Rose Bowl from the Spartans, as surely as if the Badgers had come onto the field in ski masks, bearing sawed-off shotguns.
Some of the tavern’s Michigan contingent were heard making disparaging remarks about Wisconsin when comparing the size of the Door County Peninsula to The Thumb. Door County residents were quick to respond that it’s not the size of the peninsula that matters; it’s what you do with it that counts. Discussion turned into a shouting match comparing the attractiveness and availability of sexual partners in the winter in Escanaba vs Manitowoc (some comments involved moose), and quickly degenerated from there.
Wisconsin says they will steal some other state’s motto for their spring ad campaign, but for now, the mitten reference stays. Michigan’s response involved one, un-mittened finger.
Peg-o-leg, reporting from Bay City, Michigan, smack-dab between the thumb and forefinger.
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