Thanksgiving…Again?

By Kathi Macias

Didn’t we just do Thanksgiving? It couldn’t possibly have been a year since the last one because I promised myself I was going to lose those extra turkey-and-mashed-potatoes pounds but…I haven’t! How can that be?

Seriously, when I was young I could lose ten pounds by skipping lunch for a few days. Now? Turkeys follow me around laughing. They know they’re not the only ones who are going to pay the price for this calorie-laden holiday.

I remember Thanksgiving when we were kids, when my mom started baking on Monday for Thursday’s feast. She was so busy preparing for the big day that she forgot we still had to eat until then. Between Sunday and Thursday of Thanksgiving week, we survived on dry cereal and cold hot dogs.

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My Phone Is Way Cooler Than Your Phone…

By Darren Marlar

So, you’re excited about getting that new super-thin cell phone that takes photos and holds 100 songs, are you? Oh puh-leeze… that is SO mid-March, 2009. I’m guessing your family also plays games on giant cardboard squares with dice and tiny pieces of plastic you have to move by hand. How positively ancient!

The newest cell phones allow you to watch American Idol or Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. TV phones are everywhere. In fact, Samsung is working feverishly on an even more futuristic cell phone that can, “feel, think… and reproduce” and have “artificial chromosomes.” (I’m suddenly feeling very uncomfortable about doing or saying anything in the vicinity of my ultra-modern cell phone. Still though, I must keep it – otherwise, how would people know that I’m still cool?)

Of course, cell phones are just one aspect of our lives where we feel the need to continually upgrade, refine, add-to, etc. But it doesn’t stop there. When’s the last time you shaved using a razor with less than three blades without feeling like you’ve slighted yourself from getting the closest shave possible? I’m guessing that some time in the next six years we’ll have a ten blade razor called “The Decathalon” which will shave you so close that a doctor will be required to be on stand-by with an I.V. and blood bag – just in case. 

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Glue Gun Control

By Lynn Rebuck

I am not good with a glue gun.

I can shoot a pistol with great accuracy at a paper target, but ask me to glue together paper from Target, and it’s a whole different story.

The glue gun is the weapon of choice for crafters worldwide, and quite frankly, I think we need stricter glue gun laws. This suggestion may upset some of you (especially members of the NGGA, the National Glue Gun Association), but hear me out. I think there needs to be a “cooling off” period before one is allowed to buy a glue gun.

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A Spring In Your Step

By Rhonda Rhea

My kids keep asking me if I’ll bounce on the new trampoline with them. I keep telling them that I can bounce without the trampoline, thank you very much. Besides I could get hurt on that thing. Not just the average compound-fracture-when-you-splatter-on-the-ground kind of injury. No, I’m telling you. Women over 40 do not want to sass gravity.

For instance, a younger woman can see a friend across the yard and give a big, friendly wave. Not so we of the over 40 crowd. If I were to give one of those big waves at this stage in my life, the hand/wrist part of the wave would be long over before that fluttery stuff between my elbow and shoulder stopped waving. No one wants to be that friendly.

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Demise of a Salesman

By Emily Parke Chase

The salesman appeared at my home ten minutes before the hour and parked his car behind my own vehicle, preventing any possibility of my escape.  From his trunk, Jim (not his real name) pulled a week’s worth of luggage. The biggest box held a vacuum cleaner. Three other boxes contained miraculous attachments that would turn this machine into the Harry Houdini of housecleaning. As he entered my home, I mentioned that I already owned a Kirby.

“Really? How long have you had it?”   “About ten years.”  “Well, we’ve spent two million dollars improving the machine.”  Jim displays the new attachments, all duplicates of mine which are stored downstairs under a tidy layer of dust.  “Ah, but have you seen this?” He picks up a hard rubber attachment and wrestles it inside out. He works hard to make this process look easy. “Of course, this is new. It becomes softer after a few times. With the blower feature, this attachment can clean out a drain.”  Have I been negligent? Do people vacuum their kitchen drains weekly?  “Can I use it to plunge a clogged toilet?”  “No, if you turned the machine on, water would splash all over you.”  The picture of filth spewing all over me is unpleasant, but wouldn’t a plugged kitchen drain do the same? That drain gums up only when the sink is full of tepid greasy water. This device cost two million dollars and I still have to bail out the sink first?

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