Extra Special Trends for Summer.
I walked into Nordstrom Rack on Wednesday, realizing as I walked that I was literally a walking Rack.
I was currently wearing the following that had been bought at Nordstrom Rack or HauteLook:
– Shirt
– Shoes
– Sports Bra
– Pants
– Sunglasses
– Purse
Literally the only things I had on or with me that I hadn’t bought from Rack/HauteLook were:
– Underwear
– Socks
– My children
But though I go to them for nearly my entire wardrobe, it’s the things I don’t purchase that give me the most joy.
Like, for instance, did you know that you can buy partial legs with your pumps now?
It’s as if they wanted to repurpose the Wicked Witch of the East’s shoes and what was left of her body after that house dropped on her.
Although personally, I’d be much more likely to wear the original.
![wizard-of-oz-wicked-witch-of-the-eas[2]](http://graspingforobjectivity.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/wizard-of-oz-wicked-witch-of-the-eas2.jpg "wizard-of-oz-wicked-witch-of-the-eas[2]")
It’s just less grotesque to wear someone else’s legs when they’re covered in black and white stripes, don’t you agree?
If you’re not ready to wear someone else’s calves, though, how about stitching tiny pairs of underwear all over your jeans?
They’re almost as if the witch who met Hansel and Gretel liked to add patches to her clothes to commemorate all the gingham-clad children she’d stuffed into her oven.
I mean just think – originally, those jeans looked like this.
Clearly, baking children improves denim choices.
But you know what else improves denim? Three words: Ruffles, Suspenders, and Grommets. Oh and a tube top.
If you’ve always wondered why the Red Cross was repeatedly asking you to come in and donate platelets, it’s because they had a quota from the fashion world.
“Feel like the life’s been drained out of you? For just $110, wear other people’s life blood – guaranteed to perk you up and make you feel like you’d just been at the receiving end of a giraffe birthing process.”
(As an aside, I refused to follow the whole April the Giraffe drama, but wouldn’t that social media hussy know just when to start giving birth so that the whole world was playing on their phones while their kids watched Saturday morning cartoons. I had no idea so much afterbirth could come out of one being. And that placenta could’ve fed a hippy army for a year.)
If you were to find yourself at the receiving end of a giraffe placenta, may I suggest a garbage bag jumpsuit.
You can just slip out of the jumpsuit, tie that baby up in it, and voila – immediate HAZMAT situation contained.
Do you have some denim cloth napkins left over from 1984? Have you considered stitching them onto your favorite black sweater? If not, why not?
I have trouble keeping Kleenex around – especially in the car. They seem to disappear constantly, and I’m left having just sneezed all over my steering wheel and nothing to sop up the mess.
But fashion has come to save the day.
Now, with built in BOOB TISSUES!! They can reach your nose, reach your steering wheel, reach your kid’s grubby cheeks in the backseat, and cover up those embarrassing breastfeeding mom leaks.
My Great-Grandmother always kept three Kleenexes in her bra for emergencies (tucked in next to that $5 bill) – she would have TOTALLY understood this dress.
But if your problem is that your boobs have been naughty and you need to put them in time out, this dress is here for you. Guaranteed to not allow your boobs – or your arms – to move an inch.
Hey Mom – can you reach the cereal on the top shelf?
No, no I actually cannot.
And finally. If your teenage son is a little bit goth and a little bit country and just CANNOT hurry up and decide what to wear to school tomorrow, I have found his token look. His black lipstick and rebel flag trucker hat will BOTH work perfectly with it.
And now, you’re prepared for summer.
Temporarily Closed for Battle.
I haven’t disappeared or thrown away the merits of blogging in exchange for being in the woods all day every day (although we have been having a exquisitely lovely Spring and most recently a divine three day weekend, so that possibility is most definitely always there) (and also might I add, we’ve been watching Anne with an E and her sweepingly dramatic and dashing descriptors have truly delighted my brain), but rather I’ve been waging war against my blog.
Silly blog – it seems to be getting a bit of an attitude, and no wonder – it’s nearly hit puberty. It’ll be 10 next February, and it has reached that tragical age where the moodiness hits hard. Between nasty uninvited pop-up ads that I’ve been fighting for a month (which, incidentally, seems to be the scourge of the internet of late – I’ve gotten similar ugly ads on many national, reputable websites) and the fact that it is refusing to upload any pictures at the moment, this blog is really making itself quite useless.
As soon as it’ll let me upload again, I’ll be back. Which should be very very soon.
That is, if I’m not in the woods.
(Speaking of which, I had the privilege of pulling a tick off of Chris for the very first time last night. Which means that finally, after 16 years of marriage, we’re officially “Alabama Married.”)
On that note, may your weeks be lovely and your husbands not be covered in ticks.
The Resurrection of Long Butt: Finding a Better Swimsuit.
When a fashion trend troubles me, I find myself studying it intensely, attempting to mentally work out a solution. How could we keep this look but ditch everything that makes it absolutely horrendous? These questions plague my mind in dark, subconscious corners until I concoct a solution. That’s how, in 2009, I found myself publishing the first of many posts about the terrible plague of Long Butt caused by the wrong blue jeans.
And, in many ways, those problems have been solved. (And in many ways the fashion industry is trying to convince us that Long Butt is back in style. But it’s not, y’all. IT IS NOT.)
However, there’s a new long butt in town. And it is seducing both moms and non-moms, convincing them that it can solve all their problems.
But they lie. To solve one problem, they create two more problems in their wake. Do not believe the lies.
Let me introduce you to the Dastardly New Long Butt, and then give my proposed solution to fixing it.
It is…The High Waisted Swimsuit Bottom.
Oh sure.
It’s vintage.
It’s mod.
And most importantly, it tempts viciously with the promise to conceal our post-baby-having pooch (or our pre-baby-having pooch – I’ve had both.) Furthermore, those of us who suffered through all of our abdominal muscles and tendons being shoved and severed for our c-sections especially appreciate the value in having a pooch smoosher.
However.
I just got back from several days at the beach and have seen many of these suits in person, and here’s what I’ve observed.
1. Even in front view, the bottom half of the woman in question always looks awkwardly larger than the top half, even when it is clear that the woman’s bottom half isn’t actually larger. The funhouse mirror optical illusion graciously provided by the super length (when a wearer hasn’t been airbrushed) is not delightful.
2. The butt. Oh, the butt. The problem is, you cannot fully tell in an unmoving picture what horrors the rear of this swimsuit does to ones backside. It’s when the backside is in motion that you can assess with wide-eyes, watching as the three-foot-long butt waggles back and forth. And, since it’s generally considered rude or at least a little weird to stare at another woman’s backside for a prolonged period of time, I’ve done all the staring for you. And no matter what the woman’s body shape, the butt is never flattered by the high waisted bottom. It’s not the lady’s booty’s fault – it’s the swimsuit.
In fact, most of the time you can’t even find an honest enough swimsuit company to show you the full view of their high waisted backsides – because even on the size zero model, that booty lengthens into a full-on Grandma-Butt. Even from this side view, though, you can see that they’ve taken her butt (which I’m sure is lovely) and stretched it long then pancaked it flat like they were rolling a pizza dough out of a full can of polka-dotted play-dough.
Here’s one that showed the entire backside tragedy, only multiplied by the ever widening polka-dots:
And here’s another that was even a bit more honest to the actual shape of an actual woman:
This delightful lady’s butt deserves so much better, y’all.
Also, don’t fall for the high-waisted front gimmicks.
More Coverage! More distractions from your belly!
You know what this artsy little tie-waist becomes on a normal human? A pooch hammock.
You know what this trendy vintage buttoned look becomes when it’s not on a perfect model? Mickey Mouse pants. And I know you do not want every toddler at the pool running up to you for autographs.
And the ruched look, in real life, is a pooch beach ball. Play with the beach ball, don’t become it.
So. What, you ask, is the solution to this obvious fashion conundrum? Can we have our high waists without the long butt and maximization optics?
Yes, I believe you can.
Note: I’m not willing to try these on myself and show you the comparisons on the same body as I did in my denim posts – blue jeans and bathing suit bottoms are two VERY different animals. So you’re just going to have to trust my intense staring at the women I’ve seen and my dedicated study of the products on the internet. (Unless one of you wants to volunteer your assets for the sake of this post – I’ll gladly photograph you in all the bathing suit bottoms. No? Okay then. Let’s continue.)
Here’s the solution: a wide waistband.
A big butt may be in style right now, but a long butt is not. Nor is a long butt a naturally occurring feature – it’s only a lie of clothing that creates the catastrophe of long buttedness. So give yourself a waist instead. Wide waistbands in all areas of clothing have long been known to minimize width, provide support, and give a defined separation of butt and waist, thereby eliminating the eternibutt that high waists can cause. There aren’t many high-waist-wide-waistband swimsuit bottoms on the market yet, but my prediction and hope is that this is where the trend will head – because it’s the perfect solution.
Here’s a great example. Even though the waistband is subtle in the back, look how flattering both the front and back are when there is clear separation of waist. Study her butt and see how it doesn’t elongate it at all – it just cinches her waistline and offers an hourglass figure.
Note: white has to be the most dangerous swimsuit color for a myriad of reasons and I am not recommending the color, but there are other colors available – they just don’t show back views.
Let’s look at a couple side-by-sides and admire the ability of the wide waistband to limit the amount of butt perceived.
Here’s another great example. It is admittedly cheekier than I’m willing to be, but the extra-extra wide waistband is such a nice look. Notice how it cinches and provides that visual separation that is so vital to the proper length of our backsides.
How wide is wide enough?
This next one is not wide enough. A narrow waistband makes everything worse, giving the impression that your swimsuit is desperately trying to cinch your butt into a velvet satchel but can’t quite get it closed.
You’ve got to go as wide as possible to get the benefit. Wider than yoga pants. Wider than palazzo pants. Wider than the English Channel.
If you have to sacrifice one or the other, I’d recommend trying a slightly lower waisted bottom that still has a wide waistband rather than a narrower waistband on a longer waist. Most of us have the pooch low enough that these would cover it, and it still gives a flattering look without any cinching or long butt hangover:
Option 2 – the printed waistband offers an even more defined and lovely butt cutoff.
…But don’t get craaaaaazy with your separation – this is not the bottom we’re looking for, ladies.
So. Treat your butt nicely this summer. And gift it with a waist.
FAQs:
– How about a swim skirt? I personally love a good swim skirt, and I do not think that they elongate the butt, if you find the right one. Of all the shapes of swim skirts I’ve tried, I prefer the fitted side scrunch cut. I recently purchased this one and love it:
– What about fitted swim shorts? These usually tend to cut off on the widest part of the hips, giving an unattractive hip line unless you are blessed with slender hips. Not recommended.
– What if I pair my high waisted bottom with a tankini top? Will my butt still look endlessly long? No – as long as the bottom of your tankini comes to the top of your butt, it will work as a surrogate line of separation. If you’re going tankini, Land’s End has the most flattering ones out there, in my experience.
I receive no compensation or affiliate credits for any of the links provided in this post. All research is done out of my desire to advance the cause of flattering the already beautiful female form.
The Alabama Skimm
I’ve mentioned before how much I like The Skimm, and there’s been a lot going on here lately, so I decided to give you guys a bit of my own homestate Skimm.
Alabama’s been talked about a lot lately.
First, our Governor had a, well, a situation that ended up giving us a new Governor in the most fanfare sort of way.
Then the crazy popular S-Town podcast was released.
And finally, The Daily Show had Alabama Week.
So, since I assume that I’m your main news source for all true and on-the-ground reporting of Alabama (amIright?), Let’s do some bullet points.
- You’ll be happy to know that we’re not letting our fame get to our heads. If anything, every time another news story goes national about Alabama, we’re more inclined to do a *headdesk*.
- Because, apparently, just as “good girls don’t make history”, “normal Alabamians don’t make national news.”
So let’s get started.
- Several of you asked for further details about The whole Guv sitch (read here for the rest of the deets.) I have a few for you – things that got edited out of my first overview because that thing was freaking long. I mean it had to be – it’s quite the saga. But here you go…
…The Governor had a habit of “running away” anytime he and The Sweetest Little Lady you Ever Did See got into an argument about New Girl. But the thing is, Governors aren’t supposed to just “take off.” You know, security and whatnot. His detail was constantly trying to be ready to chase after him when he left in a huff. One night, after a scramble to locate him, they had to report to their commanders, “Uh, we lost the governor.” It took a while for them to track him down by helicopter – turns out, he’d driven all the way to their beach house to have some “quiet time.” Another one of his leave-in-a-huffs, he left from their hometown of Tuscaloosa and forgot his wallet – had no money, ID, or anything. So naturally, he demanded that a state aircraft take off from Montgomery, pick up the wallet in Tuscaloosa, and deliver it to him at the beach.
Another jewel:
…After New Girl said this about The Sweetest First Lady,
…she actually wrote a speech for The Sweetest First Lady to make when she finally decided to leave The Guv. It’s THE WORST.
“I am grateful to the kind and good-hearted people of Alabama for allowing me to serve as your First Lady for the last five years. It has been a joy and a privilege to serve you and to work together on issues close to my heart such as Domestic Violence Awareness and support for Alabama’s foster children. I want to thank you all for your continued prayers of support for me, for my family and for Robert. The erroneous and unsubstantiated media reports over the last few weeks have been very hurtful to our family and to (the Caldwell and Mason families) and (other families) as well. We ask for your continued prayers in the days and weeks to come. It has been an honor to serve this great state as your First Lady.”
Thankfully, The Sweetest Old Lady You Ever Did See taught us all what you do when your husband’s mistress/Kellyanne-Conway-Wanna-Be writes you a speech that attempts to exonerate your husband’s mistress: she gave some amazing side-eye and said “Girl. Bye.”
If I were a better photoshopper, I’d turn that quilt into The Mean Girl Speech.
…Before leaving him, The Sweetest First Lady employed some fantastic and devious tactics to attempt to undermine New Girl’s hold on her husband. Unbelievably heinous things like…taking pictures with her husband and posting them on social media.
…”Did New Girl’s husband know? Why would he have been okay with it going on?” Those were questions I got asked the most. All indications and depositions imply that yes, he knew all along. As for why he was cool with all this… between their two government salaries, Rebekah’s later shady salary from the shady ACEGOV that the Guv put together, and their two consulting/ad agencies, New Girl and In-Cahoots Hub made well over a million dollars during the time in which New Girl was in the Governor’s employ. So draw your own conclusions.
…The most drama-filled day of the administration was the Governor’s second inauguration. By then, the Sweetest First Lady had secretly moved back to their hometown and was not residing at all in the Governor’s mansion (but still pre-divorce.) What was going on had not come out in the press yet, but the Sweetest First Lady had no desire for herself or her family to be subjected to the inauguration. The drama and planning that went down that day (as recorded in the First Lady’s Chief of Staff’s notes) is miniseries-worthy…
House of Cards ain’t got nothin’ on Alabama.
Moving on in The News From Alabama…
- S-Town. I can’t decide how I feel about this podcast. Maybe it’s like J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter sequel, The Cursed Child – I had to read it twice, back-to-back, to be able to enjoy it (the second time.) But I don’t feel like listening to S-Town again, so I guess I’ll have to stay confused about my feelings. Some brief thoughts, for those of you who have listened to it…(minor spoilers ahead for those who haven’t.)
…John B.’s house is 54 minutes from my house. I know this because you can type “S-Town Hedge Maze” into Google maps and see that magnificent creation. I have mutual friends on Facebook who are friends with some of the people in the show. These facts are mind-blowing to me, as that world seems three worlds away from my world.
…The first two episodes of this podcast personified why I have such high anxiety about Alabama being in the news. Despite every quadrant of this nation having backwards, close-minded small towns, Alabama (and Mississippi) seem to always get labeled by those places, and are never mentioned for all of our many finer qualities. Also, people become caricatures of themselves and of Alabama. As was shown in the later episodes, all of those people have more depth than what is initially portrayed (for better or worse, in some cases.)
…My overall frustration about the podcast is that I feel like John B. planned the whole thing to be his story. So as to not give it completely away, I believe the “twist” at the end of episode 2 was his plan all along. He wanted to be remembered in a literary fashion, and he was a most fascinating individual, but his methods were ultimately selfish and tragic.
What were your thoughts, if you’ve listened?
Moving on.
- The Daily Show. It wasn’t at all what I expected – they covered issues that were surprisingly not at the top of the everyday radar – perhaps the fact that it was educational to me is proof that they didn’t exactly catch the overall feel of the state. Such as the Alabama forest conservationist whose actual goal is to protect Bigfoot (or Bigfeet, as he was pretty sure there were more than one.)
…The premise was that because Alabama is the state with the lowest amount of Daily Show viewers, they decided that they needed to get to know Alabama and figure out what they were doing wrong. So for four days, they did stories about Alabama.
…The show was less cringe-worthy and more heart-warming that I expected, which really is wise on their part as they’re trying to lure us, not offend us. Tuesday night’s episode was about “Alabama’s Biggest Problem”, prison overcrowding.
(I mean it’s a problem. For sure. But we have others. If you haven’t noticed.)
…On that same day that aired, the Alabama House of Representatives was voting on whether or not to decriminalize Midwifery (midwifery is so fun to say – midWHIFFery midWHIFFery…). That’s right – if you’re a midwife, you’ve been an outlaw in this state. We insist on either hospital childbirth or do-it-yourself at home with ABSOLUTELY NO HELP, got it??
The timing of these two things did not miss mine and Chris’ attention…and our mental image of overcrowded prisons immediately changed to one of prisons bursting at the seams with midwives. We could only assume that they smuggle in essential oils and practice deep breathing on the regular. Kombucha is the contraband of choice and they line their cells with photos of the babies that they criminally helped out into the world.
And what did they do to get put in those overcrowded prisons? The bustling underground midwifery operation, obviously. Which leads to questions such as how does one find a Midwifery dealer? And I bet that black market midwifery is so very unregulated – we MUST decriminalize so that we can regulate and tax it properly!
The Daily Show really missed a trick on the whole criminal midwifery angle. I mean, if you thought Orange is the New Black was fun, just wait until Orange is the New Midwife comes out!
Between Alabama House of Cards and Orange is the New Midwife, we don’t need no S-Town.
The Romper’s Creepy Uncle Has Arrived.
I tend to be a late adopter of new fashion trends. I like to justify that this is with good reason – as trends take hold, they get tweaked and redesigned, and if said trend withstands the test of time, the end result is much more flattering than where it started. Skinny Jeans are a perfect example of this. When they came out, their shape turned everyone into an upside-down triangle drawn by a three-year-old (three-year-olds draw their upside-down-triangles with wiggles and lumps everywhere.) But as their roots in fashion took hold, the fabrics, colors, and cuts became much more of a delight to the typical woman’s body.
I haven’t gotten here with rompers yet, but I will admit that I’m close. I have finally started seeing rompers that give shape and don’t just look like a kindergartener’s favorite outfit and/or a 1985 floral bedsheet with a fitted corner at the waist. Rompers used to make everyone look five sizes too big, but now they’re starting to nearly show kindness to the female form.
That was, until rompers went to a frat party, got totally high, and had THE BEST IDEA EVER, DUDE.
I hereby introduce, the RompHim.
Just launched as a Kickstarter two days ago, the RompHim is, you guessed it, a romper for the fashion forward man.
Somebody please tell Models #2 and #5 that 100% cotton rips scary easy.
That’s right, ladies: for the tiny price of $95, your husband can look like he just woke up, bleary-eyed, to see Peter Pan at his window.
John and Michael Darling! Come down from that windowsill at once!!
Except that it’s not for off-broadway reproductions of British classics. It’s for hip Millennials drinking craft beer and wearing multiple all-access bracelets (or psych ward ID bracelets – can’t read the writing from here.)
Do you think Chip and Alex gave their real names? If you rearrange the letters it spells HELP BEING BLACKMAILED AND/OR WILL BE BLACKMAILED IN THE FUTURE
So let’s discuss the details. What is a RompHim, really? And more importantly, WHY??
FLATTERING CONTOURS, Y’ALL. As flattering as crochet shorts.
The RompHim is ideal for framing your assets while playing pool, bunching open awkwardly while hanging out at the fence with a neighbor, looking AHH-MAZING in your next street mural selfie, and most definitely for being a nice, thick, barrier from awkwardness the next time you find yourself sitting on the shoulders of another man.
So if these are situations you find yourself in daily, then by all means buy yourself a RompHim. Or three.
But wait!! For just a measly $190, you can have the limited edition, perfectly wrinkled Southern Staple RompHim and show your patriotism while you romp.
(Secret Edition Confederate Flag RompHim available upon request. Most Likely.)
So, my girls: next time you know your guy is headed to a football game, or a hunting trip, or a multi-day hiking trip, make sure he’s properly outfitted in a RompHim. And maybe with that fiiiiiiine fur jacket on the Mister Model #6.
And no worries that the RompHim won’t get produced en masse – it tripled its 30 day fundraising goal in less than 2 days.
So gird your loins and prepare your hearts: you just might be exposed to an in-real-life RompHim this summer.
The Hero We’ve Been Waiting For. The Hero We Deserve.
OhMyGoodness Guys.
I have SUCH GOOD NEWS.
For the past two years, nearly everyone, on all quadrants of the political spectrum, have been living in existential dread. Overwhelming percentages of people have expressed a grave distrust in our political situation, and the entire world seems to have the same problems: political systems are hopelessly corrupt and no party seems to have the answer, nor do they have a single good-hearted candidate to bring people together.
But you already know all of this. It’s been a painful 18 months for all of us. So let’s not rehash why we need a hero in these trying times.
But I have delightful information to share with you.
We.
Have.
That.
Hero.
She’s come from a faraway place to save us all. She has a secret plan, and she’s going to unite us when no one else could.
That hero is Miley Cyrus.
That’s right. Miley has put to bed her twerking, ball-riding, body-baring ways. Miley has mounted a knight’s steed on springs, and she is sure that she will be able to help her solve all our problems.
In a recent interview with Billboard (warning – she has not put away her language), Miley has shared that she is so committed to her cause of saving the world that she’s even sacrificed her adoration of drugs to do it. She’s completely clean, she exclaims, shocked at her own superhuman abilities…
That’s right, y’all. TWENTY-ONE days of self-sacrifice from the depths of her heart to assist in saving the nation. But why Miley, you may ask? What is it about her specific set of skills that makes her our perfect hero? In her words (re: the day after the election)…
That’s right. She’s gonna glue this place back together with her magical talent of being from the magical state of Tennessee. God did not give us very many people with this set of abilities. Thank goodness Miley is willing to use hers for good.
And HOW exactly is she going to accomplish rebuilding our nation into one of likemindedness and American Utopia with her Tennesseean Superpower? Well. I hate to unearth Miley’s ground-shattering plan, but since she’s already done it, I’ll share it here with you, in the words of the great political commentator, TooFab…
It all makes perfect sense. All we have to do to change the world is have a 24 year old superhero be willing to jump into her phone booth and transform from this…
They’re staring right at me how can I hear your politics
To this…all for us.
All of American Goodness and Sanity is wrapped up in one woman’s clothing choices. And I, for one, have never seen a dress that made me more willing to agree with someone’s every political opinion. This is the answer we’ve all been waiting for.
Miley for President, y’all.
Please Sell Me Beachfront Property in Wyoming.
Something about the marketers that have been trying to reach me lately has seemed a bit…off. So I saved their ads. For us to discuss.
Do I wear a hair tie around my wrist most days? Yes. Is Facebook secretly videotaping me so that they are aware of this behavior? Probably. Are we seriously to the point where we need jewelry that solely functions as a hair tie holder? Oh I do hope not.
But I admit it – I clicked. Because I had to read more about this.
Let’s break this down.
- If your hair tie is dingy, your hair tie is dingy. Placing a dingy hair tie on a rose gold bracelet does not change the property of said hair tie. As shown in every photo ever of Trump’s NY Penthouse, gold does not a classy look make.
- Worry-Free. “Go throughout the day worry-free.” My GOODNESS this bracelet has high standards. Because yes, my biggest worry every day is most definitely whether the spare hair tie I have is displayed in a stylish location.
- And am I glad to see that it comes with a Certificate of Authenticity. There are creeper vans set up on every corner in Birmingham selling knock-off versions of this nineteen dollar work of genius.
But let’s move on to much wiser ways to spend our First World money.
I will feel so much safer on the beach this summer if I’m wearing Teapot Block. I mean, look at Mrs. Pott’s complexion. It’s like fine china!
And then there was this.
I mean, I definitely have stretch marks. And I think they might even qualify as tiger stripes. But if they looked this amazing, I’d proudly show that mess off!
(Maybe she was just a bit streaky when she put on her Teapot block.)
But perhaps if I sat like this while I drank my smoothie, my stretch marks would magically melt away!
Please everyone take a minute and attempt to make this exact pose while sipping a drink that doesn’t have a straw. It’s literally impossible.
I saw this product at my once-a-year visit to Wal-Mart.
Who sees…
a) Ripple
b) Nipple
Survey says….it’s totally nipple milk.
I feel like the Arby’s marketing team was located in a state where pot was legal when they came up with this utterly brilliant catch phrase…
I hear they hired the same marketing firm that promoted this amazing individual.
I get Mickey Mouse or Peppa Pig. But if you can be Batman OR Elsa, you’re worthy of a phone call.
These people reached out to me – clearly I really should have taken them up on their amazing offers. Or should have just responded with an annotated version of their letter – marked up with all of their spelling and grammatical mistakes.
I love Amazon. I live on Amazon. I really do. But I don’t like Alexa (I have Siri! Why do I need Alexa? And she’s totally a Russian spy), and furthermore, this new version of their household stalker is just downright creepy.
Didn’t feel like you were giving The Great Powers That Be enough information with their listening-in devices? No problem! Now you can add a camera to it! Be sure to keep it somewhere central so that you can be surveilled as efficiently as possible.
At first, it seems like they’re trying to put Instagram Husbands out of business. Who needs a dude to take that 500th photo for the ‘gram when you have Echo Look?
But no. They’re trying to off Instagram Wives.
Yeah. This is totally for men. Obviously not marketed toward women. That guy totally has a personal lookbook of his outfits of the day. #OOTD.
I’ve got total FOMO (Fear of Missing Out, for those of you who don’t keep up with the latest Internet abbreviations) on this one. Am I the only one that doesn’t have $96 heeled bedroom shoes?
I guess if I were more of a chemise and robe girl, I’d totally understand.
This billboard is in Birmingham, confusing me on the regular.
Are we trying to,
a) Keep hot dogs out of hospitals (do most hot dog choking situations happen within hospitals? Because if so shouldn’t we keep hot dogs in hospitals because that’s a really convenient place to find a Heimlich Helper?)
b) Install anti-hot dog devices in patient’s throats to prevent future hot dog scenarios?
c) Lock all at-risk hot dog eaters up into a non-hot-dog cell to keep them from being able to reach their torpedo of deadly meat?
(Disclaimer: As a child, I choked on hot dogs so often that my mother peeled all of my doggy dinners. So clearly I should be ALL FOR this movement.)
By degree, I am an accountant. I am not, however, a Certified Management Accountant. But OBVIOUSLY, every CMA I know uses this exact method to flaunt their superiority. And seeing it totally makes me want to earn one.
CMA®: Professionals so very committed to their jobs that they have nothing in their lives that is more notable to tat.
The Robin Hood of Animal Memorialization.
There’s been a serious dearth of opportunities for roadkill kit utilization lately. And it wasn’t for my lack of looking for those to memorialize eternally – I had been keeping my eyes especially alert for a rabbit all through March and April, as I had a set of tiny Easter Eggs that really needed a job. The only rabbit I saw took five careful drive-bys to determine that he was missing his head.
Seriously…where is his head? Is it curved under? Turned funny? Under his stomach? Okay there’s his neck nevermind.
So Easter passed without me being able to get a festive photo with which to celebrate. I tried to justify my failure.
At least I got St Patrick’s Day pictures…
I was super happy for the Animal Kingdom, as it appeared that the tide had shifted and they were beginning to win The War on Cars. So there was that. But my alt-dead Instagram account had been sitting idly by…sad, lonely, and feeling all the feels.
Finally, on the day we were leaving for the beach, I got a text from neighbor Not-Crazy-Renee. She’s always good for a tip. And this one was better than most – there was an opossum within walking distance of my house – one who died on a hill (as usual.) ‘Possums take that metaphor very literally.
I quickly grabbed some supplies, my rubber gloves, and my camera, and went on a walk. I decided that, since it was only 5 days past Easter, I could still work the holiday into my theme.
I quickly scattered the eggs, looking right and left, worried that my neighbors would see me. I didn’t want to get called out on the Next Door forum with a passive-aggressive note about “people who leave novelty items by dead animals.”
I wished I’d brought a tiny Easter basket along, but snapped my pic anyway and as casually as possible, walked back to my own house.
In case anyone was wondering why their baskets were sparse this year, it looks like the Alabama Easter ‘Possum got a bit…waylaid.
Just a couple hours later we left for the beach, and I about flipped with paranoia when we passed by and all the eggs were gone, but the possum was still there.
WHAT HAD HAPPENED TO THE EGGS.
Do I have that tidy of neighbors that went out and carefully collected the tiny Styrofoam eggs because they prefer their neighborhood roadkill to be free of extraneous objects?
Just before I had a mini panic attack, I noticed bright colors in the gutter. The eggs had been blown and scattered by passing cars.
Sigh of relief.
There were no acceptable animals on our way to the beach, but just as we were almost home, I spotted what I’d been awaiting for so long: A fresh, uncrunched armadillo.
Although he was kindly on the side of the road and there was plenty of margin to work with, he was beside a busy road. And I really do prefer to work in solitude.
I nervously got out of the car and pretended to be taking pictures of the extremely unremarkable bushes behind him until there was a break in traffic. I decided to attempt a literary prop first.
Livin’ on a prayer.
But the wind was high and quickly knocked the book over. And it just didn’t quite portray the aura that this particular Armadillo was giving off. He seemed to be more of an outlaw than a man of the cloth.
So I grabbed my second prop, waited again for traffic to stall out, then set up my next pose with great speed. I’m a freakin’ Olan Mills when it comes to scene changes.
Desperado the Armadillo has been out riding fences for so long now….he’s a hard one…
…but he’s got his reasons.
Yes. This was what he was meant to be. I left the gun with him (for protection from roadkill snatchers, obvs) and sprinted back to the car, hoping to jump in and have Chris gun the engine before I was spotted.
And, as it turns out, my paranoia was totally on point, because I had this conversation with another neighbor, let’s call him Freddy-The-Neighbor (because his name is Freddy) later that week….
I seriously better lawyer up. Because apparently, I’m the Desperado here.
Revisiting The Black Spot
The Year was 2013.
I was experiencing, for the first time in my life, the harrowing realities of having a two and a half year old male creature.
He was fantastically adorable.
Which did not make up for the fact that he was two and a half and therefore made me fear for his life continuously.
Lest you’ve never had a two and a half year old male of your own, here’s the short version: they’re fast enough to do whatever they want and stupid enough to do whatever they think of.
He wasn’t the type to take dangerous risks. In that, I was lucky. But he was the type to, every now and then when I was resting in my fortune that he wasn’t SO bad, do something completely and terrifyingly unexpected.
Such was the case with The Black Spot.
I had taken my two children, one being the ultra-responsible six year old girl and the other being the grab bag of surprises two and a half year old boy, to the downtown library. The downtown library is a giant place of wonder and excitement and history. Books of history. Newspaper microfiche filled with history. An entire extra multi-story building of history. And also floors covered in history.
We were in the entrance plaza, where there’s a semi-circle of low steps that lead from the front door to the desks. Those steps are well-traveled steps, and they definitely looked the part that day. It’s a constant movement of people walking through, tracking all of the outside world in and depositing it on those steps before truly entering the library.
And I still haven’t figured out what I did to cause the Creator to smite me so, but this black spot caught Noah’s eye that fateful day in 2013.
I saw him take a second glance at it and I sadly did not think fast enough to compute all of the parallel realities in which this crucial second could take me. Ultimately, I was counting on my son’s relative calm to guide me through this potential storm.
But. Within .0483 seconds, he turned to that Choose-Your-Own-Adventure page that ends in “…and all the characters died. The End”
He stooped down and my precious lovely child LICKED THE FREAKING BLACK SPOT.
I saw his tongue go out and immediately started praying.
No Dear God No Dear God Please No Dear God No No No Please Don’t Let It Be…
I leaned over and checked. It was.
The black spot was now a moist black spot.
And my life and surely his were now over.
I was the failure of a mother who’d allowed her gorgeous toddler to lick the shoe sole botulism coating on a piece of year-old used chewing gum.
And he would surely start seizing at any moment.
I momentarily pondered washing his mouth out with Purell. Or perhaps a bar of soap. How about foaming hand soap in the bathroom? Maybe just dunk his head in the toilet. It couldn’t make it worse.
But deep down, I knew it was too late. I could visualize those wriggling black-spot germs burrowing into his tongue. I lived out the rest of that day in fear, watching him for any sign of instant demise.
But somehow, that was 2013 and this is 2017 and he’s still a healthy, gorgeous boy – and one that has the tiniest bit more sense than that black spot tasting two and a half year old.
For the first time since The Incident, I braved the downtown public library again with my children in tow. It wasn’t that the library had done anything to me, per say, but the Mommy Guilt that would scream at me from The Black Spot – I wasn’t sure I could bear up under it.
As we drove slowly to The Place of My Failure, I told my children the story of The Black Spot.
Ali remembered it, but Noah did not. He was fascinated by the tale of this unknown toddler – he couldn’t fathom ever being a Spot Licker.
We walked into the lobby and to the parcel of flooring that I knew I’d never forget. Both kids were eagerly chanting “Where’s the black spot? Where is it?”
We found the stair and there was indeed on its surface a slightly lighter spot – perhaps the same one, but probably not. After all, black spots come and go, but memories of licking them stay forever.
Noah proudly posed with his history.
And the Oreo shrapnel around his mouth really added to the believability that he had, at one time, licked that.
And all I could do in that moment is what every Mom in the universe has done before me. Sigh and silently hope that he, one day, has a child just like himself.