I Love a Good Bad Idea

Just ask me nicely, and I'll be happy to start a land war in Asia, or invade Russia in winter. However, in the absence of military backing or abundant vacation time, I'll have to embrace smaller, sillier concepts. Which of the following stupid things that I've done is the most fascinatingly idiotic?

1. Standing on a rolling chair to reach the top shelf
2. Marrying a near-stranger and moving to South America

3. Attempting to put away a glass bowl by tossing it onto the top shelf

4. Opening a bottle of beer with a corkscrew

5. Towing my car with control-top pantyhose

6. Sneaking a flask of bourbon into my 10-year high school reunion

7. Frying bacon while naked

I'm gonna have to go with Number Seven. Now scrub THAT mental image from your pre-caffeinated brains.

The Hell That Is My Safeway

I go to the market several times a week. And several times a week, I waste a few more of my precious hours on earth, grinding my teeth and forcing a smile like a Valium-addled 1950's housewife.

Problem one? The customers. I am surrounded by the sort of people who have never bought groceries before. They dicker over prices, they run back for "just one more item" right as they are being rung up, they fail to notice when their purchase is complete and gawp at the cashier. Note: in our capitalistic society money is exchanged for goods and services.

Moreover, every line has the Complainer. This person sighs loudly, shifts, nestles their way into your personal space, and whines their way through the entire grocery purchase procedure. The Complainer often fails to realize that their actions are having the opposite effect of what they intended: instead of speeding things up, time slows to a slurping crawl.

Problem two? The cashiers. Now, I believe all honest work has dignity. And anyone who can wear a smock and stand on their feet all day is worthy of my respect. But heavens.

Thursday, I was stuck with a Food Molester. This woman, who was clearly new to the grocery game, felt she had to manhandle every item in my basket. I spent my walk home imagining a sort of vegetative group therapy, in which the produce section wept over its collective deflowering. The cilantro accused the cashier of date rape, the tomatoes got a sultry spanking, and the green onions will never be the same.

Sunday, however, was a topper. Wow. I ran in for some flour, saw a short "Express" line, and was ready to go. However, just as I was about to be rung up, a uniformed Safeway employee butted in front of me. "Oh, I was here before," she said, breezily and to the opposite of all evidence and logic. She then spent ten minutes arguing with her fellow cashier over the prices of various products. (I would think someone who worked there would already know this stuff.) I had lemon bars to speed-produce, my boss' party to attend, and a boyfriend waiting patiently in the parking lot.

"Look, I'm sorry, but I'm in a terrible rush, can we speed this up somehow?"

Answer: a synchronized pop of gum, two sets of rolled eyes, and the sarcastic slowness of four hands doing a Happy Hands Club wave of helplessness.

My options are pretty limited. I could stop eating entirely. That's the cheapest route, for sure. I could go to a different grocer, except for that whole thing where I don't have a car. I could order groceries for delivery. Or, I could complain about it on my blog, ask for your stories, and feel just a bit better.

I think I'll take the last option. In the comments, tell me your most painful tale of grocery woe.

PS - As some of you know where I live, please avoid giving out the name of my neighborhood. Stalking is not very awesome. Also, if a flood of would-be stalkers comes to my Safeway, the lines will be that much longer. Thanks.

The Other Half Lives with a Ham in a Holster

I am a woman of simple tastes. But one of my favorite hobbies is perusing the Dean & Deluca catalog, which is most assuredly not for simple tastes (or simple budgets). The one conclusion I can draw: the rich really are different. And most of those differences are due to their superior (and possibly somewhat bizarre) food intake.

I tailgate with hot dogs and beer. The Dean & Deluca squad would prefer I swap my pig lip surprise with relish for a foie gras burger.

In the "Pantry Staples" section, I am lacking a very basic item called the Texturas Spherification Minikit, for the miniature price of $200. This kit allows me to "transform [my] favorite flavors into spheres of different sizes." I cannot WAIT to serve spherical Goldfish crackers at my next party!

I'm also in need of another Very Important Item: A Healdsburg Decanter Dryer. From the sound of it, you would think it's a highly specialized device, when, in fact, it appears to be a $120 version of a paper towel rack. Also, I have no decanters to dry. I pour my wine straight out of the bottle. In fact, I often pour my wine straight out of the bottle and directly into my mouth.

My favorite find, however, is the Jamon Iberico de Bellota (translation: “Iberian Soap of the Ball”). If you’ve got twenty C-notes, you can buy an entire leg of ham. With a foot still attached. A leg of ham with a carving stand. A ham in a holster, if you will.

Really, all foods should come in holsters. Couldn’t you imagine your ground beef in a sling?

In the comments, tell me why a leg of ham could be worth $2,000. And, no, you cannot say, "A leg of ham would be worth $2,000 if it was wearing a diamond anklet."

It's the Friday Soy and Sperm Hour!

I’ve never quite understood vegetarianism. I love a fluffy bunny as much as the next girl, but I love Thumper even more when he’s cooked up in a pot with a lovely red wine sauce. I’d have a cheeseburger for dessert if it was considered even mildly socially acceptable.

My meat-related moral dilemmas don’t revolve around veal, foie gras, factory farming or sustainable species of fish. Instead, a dinner date with me is like a cross between Sophie’s Choice and Wild Kingdom.

Since it takes just a couple of people to polish off a chicken, and a whole soccer team to eat a cow, is it morally superior to eat beef so fewer animals lose their lives? But, cows are mammals. So does a mammal’s life matter more than a bird’s? And pigs are the only other animal that sunburns - as a fair-skinned woman, am I betraying a kindred spirit every time I eat pork? And what about insects? If I eat a grasshopper taco at Oyamel, I am robbing dozens of merry little bugs of their lives. The thought gives me pause, then I remember how much they taste like extra-crispy bacon and I’m chomping away.

I think the best thing about giving up meat would be the moral certitude. Meat production is bad for the environment, so the vegetarian gullet is like a spit-shined Prius. And who doesn’t love pigs, cows, and chickens? They’re so cuddly! I mean, don’t you just want to give that chicken a kiss on its tiny adorable little beak?

On the other hand, I’ve always been a little baffled by male vegetarians. I like men who like meat, beer and boobs. Most vegetarian dudes admit they originally gave up meat to impress a girl. That's dedication. And they will cheerily serve up meatless Philly cheesesteaks and tofu scrambles. But I have a little bit of trouble taking them seriously.

Thankfully, I have alert reader Kevin to tell me why. This article landed in my inbox yesterday. Soy is bad for the swimmers! Ergo, male vegetarians have lower sperm counts! Their boys are too busy looking for that perfect tofu burger to get to the egg. And the ones that can get to the egg won’t implant, as contact with the egg would violate their vegan principles.

So, a vegetarian is never going to knock me up. It’s not snobbery, it's not outdated standards of manliness, it's not a moral failing. My reluctance to date vegetarians is merely the gentle hand of evolution.

One Sentence Movie Review

I liked In the Land of Women better when it was called Every Other Movie, Ever.

Nothin' Says Lovin' Like...oh, Heaven Help Us

An anonymous tipster sent me a link to the Be My Valentine Tonight Seduction Kit. For $10, you can get $1.25 worth of lube, body paint, "surprise gift" and a condom. Plus, beautiful packaging of beautiful people, designed to harp on your partner's physical insecurities.

And then there's the legion of issues I have with their pitch:

What better way to say I love you every Valentine's Day than with this kit of seduction?

How about just saying, "I love you," vs. dressing up your devotion with a cheapass-looking kit? Also, every Valentine's Day? Ho hum, "Honey, thanks for getting me lube...again."

Kit includes everything you need for an intimate night

Except for intimacy. Oh, they mean that kind of intimacy. Carry on.

Includes condom, lube, body paint and a surprise gift

Really, that's all you need? I wonder if the lube is the tingling/warming kind, because nothing says true love like mentholating your private parts. And I am dying to know what the surprise gift is.

OK, it's still better than the most dire Valentine's gift of all: the teddy bear. But not by much.

Should Auld Stameys Be Forgot...

Today, I woke up and had no idea why I had set an alarm. Then I got dressed and forgot where I worked. Then I got on the Metro and couldn't remember what station I needed.

Mind you, this is what I do every morning. It's not just because I'm back at work after ten days off. But my vacation was lovely. I drove 1300 miles in four days, ate a ton of pork products and biscuits, and heard the three-syllable version of my name at least a hundred times. In the South, I'm Sha-yan-non. I also had to get re-accustomed to hearing my dad addressed as Skeeter.

I drove almost ten hours to Cherokee, where I spent Christmas Eve eating steak and playing slots with my dad and uncle. I was asked the best question ever, "So, which one are you? The divorced one or the lesbian?" I also took a side trip to see the rowdy Hartsville Stameys, where Peanut attempted to take us to breakfast at a restaurant called Carolina Lunch (that only serves breakfast). I also had the best conversation ever with my cousin Donna:

Donna: So, no husband, no kids...
Me: (silence, bracing for biological clock comment)
Donna: ...so you must have the cleanest house! Can I come live with you?

My rental car was a bulbous red Ford Focus, which made me feel like I was driving Rudolph's nose. I eventually remembered how to drive, even though I almost wasn't allowed out of the rental agency parking lot. Apparently if you ask the security guard a bunch of questions on how to find the "clicker thingy" and the "wiper doodads," they won't open the gate.

But driving was fun. I even got back into performing my driving rants. "Who in hell painted these line markings? They're all over the place! Picasso? Am I on a Cubist highway?" Lest you think I'm odd for yelling about Cubism while alone in a car, my sister does the same thing. Except in a goofy French accent.

The only bad part of the trip was driving up I-95 the day after Christmas. I made great time. Until Richmond. Then it took more than four hours to get from Richmond to Catonsville (no, I haven't moved to Baltimore). By the time I arrived, I was a babbling hysterical wreck.

I spent the rest of the vacation lounging and spending as little time in cars as humanly possible.

Marketing Rules!

I work as an office manager, which makes me a juicy target market. On a typical day, I receive all sorts of random sales calls, junk mail, and spam. I love it. As marketing gets more and more targeted, and the sheer volume of information increases, the attempts to reach me just get weirder and louder.

Oh, there’s the usual stuff, like growing my penis, reducing my debt, or finding love the Christian way. But the best spam I ever saw landed in my inbox today. Celebrate Memorial Day with a Honey Baked Ham! There’s no better way to honor America’s fallen heroes than with…pork products.

So now I’m wondering what product tie-ins I’ll get for the rest of the holidays. Viagra for Valentine’s? Should I honor Father’s Day with a Nigerian bank scam? Hey, let’s celebrate Halloween with some high-quality toner cartridges!

I’ve also been trying to figure out how in hell the ham marketers come up with this Memorial Day campaign. Did the marketing team conduct some sort of study? Maybe they did a focus group, where they asked participants to brainstorm new ham-centric holidays. Easter and Christmas are a given, but why not have an Arbor Day ham? Or maybe they paid an outside consultant to come up with a new campaign, “Ham: Not Just for Jesus Any More.”

Either way, I don’t see myself buying a ham for Memorial Day. Saint Walpurgis Day, however, is a definite hamworthy holiday. Well played, Honey Baked Ham people. Well played.