Cindy's World

Archive for November, 2013

I was fortunate to have one of my stories about shopping on black Friday published on the Erma Bombeck website. You may read it here.

Wintertime is the time for school closings and delays. The weatherman predicted snow overnight. DOT crews were reported to be preparing, which makes me laugh because what they really mean is they pray (really hard) that it doesn’t snow. Where I live everything shuts down when it snows. Even the plows get confused and stay huddled inside. One snowflake and everything comes to a grinding halt.

We got our ‘school is delayed 2 hours’ phone call at 5:30 a.m. It boggles the mind to think they wake us up to let us know school’s delayed and we can sleep an extra two hours, but I never do fall back to sleep. I want to wrap my hands around the genius who invented this program.

Remember the olden days when we found out the distressing news by reading the crawl at the bottom of the television screen. As I read the list of closings I’d get more and more anxious as it got to my daughter’s school. I would cross my fingers and all body parts that could be crossed for good measure. I would make a pact with God if her school was open I would never again use the Lord’s name in vain. Her school popped up on the screen – CLOSED. *** Dammit! I renewed my pact.

One night my husband and I were watching TV when a ticker popped up; alerting us my daughter’s school was closed due to inclement weather. Infuriated, I ranted and raved about the lunatics who would close the schools because it snowed in Alaska. This was safety overkill. This was *** Dammit! My husband told me we were watching a show we recorded back in January, six months earlier. Our daughter was on summer vacation. Just the thought had me frazzled and renewing my pact.

Then there was the morning my daughter waited for the bus for two hours. After two hours she came inside and asked, “Are you sure there’s school today? I’ve been waiting two hours.” Turned out the show I was watching was another old, recorded show and instead of it being 75 and sunny, it was 12 degrees and snowing. School closed! *** Dammit!

I renewed my pact with God and my daughter made her first one. I don’t know where she learned such language.

Butterball, The nation’s largest turkey producer, has announced there’s a shortage of fresh, large whole turkeys – 16 lbs. and greater this year. The company explained that they are ‘continuing to evaluate why they experienced a decline in weight gain on some of their farms.’ I’ve got a theory – maybe, just maybe, the turkeys smarten up and purposely didn’t eat much to gain weight so they could be killed and eaten by someone on Thanksgiving. I bet Tommy turkey was hip to the farmer who told him he would return his mother after he took her to be weighed. Tommy lost friends and family who went to weigh in and never returned. So, this year when Tommy reached 15 pounds, he cut calories. He cut carbs and the mayo from his ham (never turkey) sandwich. He spread the word and soon all turkeys were pecking at their food rather than gobbling it up. (Pun intended) This is my theory.

I eat and enjoy turkey on thanksgiving, but I enjoy the leftovers made from it better. What I like as much as the dinner is apple pie for dessert. Apple pie is as traditional as the turkey. I eat my pie heated, with a scoop of vanilla ice cream, on the side. I slide my homemade, store bought pie, straight from the box, into the oven to heat. I’ll be adventurous and eat plain apple pie, Dutch apple or apple crumb, with the vanilla ice cream. It has to vanilla and not some weird flavor like orange macadamia nut to go with the pie. This is not the time for experimentation. It’s time for tradition.

So, this Thanksgiving when you’re eating hot dogs (because of the turkey shortage) be grateful for the apple pie. Everybody loves apple pie. Unfortunately, so did Tommy’s mother, which is why she weighed twenty pounds and wound up stuffed with apple sausage stuffing as someone’s holiday feast.

There’s a website called ShesAHomewrecker.com. The site exposes your husband or boyfriend’s alleged mistresses with names, pictures and torrid details. One can publicly flog the other woman and shame your husband at the same time. This modern day form of revenge is what the ‘Scarlet letter A’ was in the olden days.

This site places blame on the other woman, not the man. Why isn’t the man held accountable? Didn’t the man participate willingly or did he have a gun to his head? He wouldn’t be there if he didn’t want to be. It was your husband who pledged to love you, not the other woman. She may not even have known about you.

Let’s face it, when a married man engages in an affair he may not tell his lover he’s married. If the guy’s lying to and cheating on his wife, you can bet he’ll lie to the mistress. It’s not like the guy has a high moral standard. Get real.

This site should be used to extract revenge on the husband as well as the other woman. Post embarrassing information about your husband the mistress doesn’t know. Give torrid details about the man you both love. Let the mistress know the following: his idea of musical entertainment is burping and farting in sync. His idea of cooking a gourmet meal is a bowl of Fruit Loops. His idea of housework is plugging in the vacuum for you. His idea of the perfect “As Seen on TV” Christmas gift is one that slices and dices.

Maybe, if the mistress sees the real man and not the man who’s wooing her, she’d throw him back. Maybe, the wife and mistress could form a support group and create a website –‘Women Who Were Duped.’ What a great way to get revenge on the one man who duped two women.

An article in my local newspaper reported marriage increases obesity rates and married people gain more weight than single people. I was not surprised to read this. The sharing of food as a gesture of love begins on the wedding day. No sooner does the bride and groom say, “I do,” that they say, “Let’s eat cake.”

A married couple becomes equal to a pregnant woman who eats for two. When you’re married, come holiday time, if the in-laws live close, time will be spent visiting and eating at two houses. So, even though you’re one person, you will eat two holiday dinners complete with turkey, cranberry sauce, grandma’s dry stuffing, pie and an antacid. This food fest accompanied with indigestion is now your two meal holiday reality. Loosen that belt

But, it’s when a couple becomes parents that it’s easy to pack on the pounds. If you’re baby refuses to eat baby food you make a show of eating some and exclaiming, “Yum,” in hopes of getting them to eat it. All that happens is you’ve eaten your baby’s food in addition to your food. After a year you’ve gained ten pounds. Since you don’t want to toss food left on the tray by your toddler, you eat it. After a year of eating two dinners you’ve gained another ten pounds.

For your child’s birthday you eat the homemade cake and the store bought cake (in case the homemade one was a flop.) You rationalize the extra pounds of baby weight even though your baby is twelve by telling yourself, “He’ll always be my baby.” Has anyone ever conducted a survey on how children contribute to parental weight gain? Just a thought.

Anyway, Halloween is another holiday where it’s easy to pack on the pounds. A parent can indulge in their kids’ candy well into the holiday season which brings with it the vicious cycle of the two meal holiday that started the day you said, “I do.”

An article in USA Today reported a new study that outfitted men with an eye-tracking system (which measures eye movement) found men looked more at women’s bodies than their faces. No. Really? Did we really need a study to tell us what we already knew? Why don’t we do a study on ways we waste money doing stupid studies?

Girls wouldn’t sext and instagram their body parts for the entire world to see if they didn’t get attention. Girls never send pictures of their teeth. You know why? Nobody would care.

Kim Kardashian recently instagramed her bootie and even if you’re not a fan, you looked; you couldn’t help it. When something that massive takes up an entire screen, you notice. Thank goodness it wasn’t in IMAX.

Anthony Weiner texted pictures of his wiener to women. Did he choose his wiener to conduct a play-on-words with his last name? I don’t know. I’m not sure. All I know is that photo should never grace the cover of a Christmas card.

Do men go to strip bars for the stimulating conversation? Is there a man alive who could tell you the color of Bambi’s eyes? Would men notice or care if a ‘headless stripper’ performed?   They would care if the stripper started to put clothes on.

Sunglasses were invented so men could hide their ogling. It dates back to the caveman. At first the caveman was happy to be out hunting deer and ogling women while his wife stayed home and swept the cave’s dirt floor. But when his wife got bored staying home and reading the walls she insisted she go along on his camping trips. The husband realized his wife would catch on quickly that he was checking out more than deer for dinner. This is when the idea for sunglasses was born. Every man passed down to his son his club and the eternal hope that some male would invent sunglasses.

A man on the beach wears sunglasses not so much for protection from the sun, but rather protection from physical harm should his wife see him looking at another woman. How much do you wanna bet the caveman’s wife used his club to hit him in the wiener while he slept?