Stranded in Hazard-but only for a little while

So let me start by saying that today was a monumentally crappy day…  I got up- a little earlier because my bladder was yelling at me.  Got ready for work, had my coffee and walked out to my car.  I climb in and
Nothing. Nothing . Nothing. It wouldn’t start.  No click, no wheezing-nothing.

No big deal, we took Joe’s truck (I drove because I am a terrible passenger-white knuckles the whole bit-I blame my Dad but that is a story for another time.)  Joe noticed one of his tires was a little low and we were going to stop for air on the way to work but the one place was too busy and the other was inconvenient-we’ll stop on the way home.

We got to Hardee’s for breakfast-they took a little longer than usual, no big deal we can make up the time… Then we discovered that they forgot my straw… And I knew the universe was screwing with me.  I had about 50% crazy customers all day-there were some really good customers too.  The day seemed to fly till my last customer of the day… trying to authenticate him (we have to ask security questions) was like pulling teeth.  What should have been a 3 minute call was 20 minutes and I left work frustrated.

We got in the truck to head to Food City for air and PowerBall tickets.  I better go the speed limit with the way my day has gone.    

10 minutes from work… fwump fwump fwump fwump.  It wasn’t just flat, the tire was shredded.  So we pulled into the lot of this little auto body shop.  A police Officer pulled in right behind us to make sure we were okay-“thank you Sir, just a flat.  I’m going to call Mom for help.”  I had to walk up the road a little to get cell service (thank Heavens I didn’t forget it.)  We wait-it took Mom about 45 minutes to get to us… we listened to my iPod. I mentioned that I was thinking just yesterday that I need to find a way to spend more time outside and Joe said “just not this way.”  We stood and waited… the gentleman who owns the lot was nice enough to let us leave the truck there overnight.

Mom came to get us and I drove us to Wal-Mart to get a tire iron… There are few things that can make me feel better when I’m having a rough time of things… one of those is chocolate but I’m trying to cut back, one is alcohol and I try not to indulge too often because I have an addictive personality and the other is PJs.  PJs, jommies, jammys, pajamas whatever you call them, them make me happy.  I like nice soft ones with fun prints or pretty shiny stuff.  I’ve haven’t bought any lately because I haven’t needed them.  When we got to Wal-Mart I made a bee-line to the PJs.  I considered the cotton night shirts with the Halloween themes, the flowered flannel nightgowns and fuzzy sleep pants but I decided to go with the soft pink pajamas with the darker pink bows and the little black scotty dogs.  They make me smile.

We went back to get Joe’s tire and then home.  Unloaded Mom’s car and went to see if we could get my car to start. The *bleep* *bleep* started on the first try…  Grrrr. While we were putting the tire in the trunk of my car we talked about how everything happens for a reason… better for this to happen while Joe could have help and not while he was on the way to visit his kids, in a spot with no cell signal.  And I would not have gotten the new jommies.

I am wearing the scotty dog jommies right now… I know that when I go to bed I’ll wake up and tomorrow will be another day and it is bound to be better than today.

Thanks again for coming to rescue us, Mom.

As seen on television

The US has a great history of ordering stuff through the mail.  It started with the local mercantile or General Stores.  If there was something you needed, they would order it for you.  And, of course, you would have to wait forever for it to arrive and it was really expensive.

Then the catalog came along… One of the most famous and longest running was Sears and Roebuck.   We had a reproduction Sears & Roebuck catalog when I was growing up… I loved to look through at all the interesting things that could be ordered.   Sears started with watches.  Then he partnered with Roebuck and they added bicycles, farm equipment, cars, dolls, clothes, indoor toilets and eventually houses.  When I looked it up, I learned that Ben Franklin had a catalog order business selling science and academic books.

Around the 1930s, people could order stuff from the ads in the back of comic books and magazines.  In the 70s it was things like Sea Monkeys.  You can still order stuff from the back of comic books-mostly back issues.  Mail order this way was tricky.  Some of the ads were honest- some made the product sound much more exciting than it really was.  You may not have seen it but what springs to mind is an episode of The Waltons.  John Boy wants to build muscle so he orders the body building kit from a mail-order ad featuring a strong man type illustration.  When the ‘kit’ arrives, it’s just a booklet about resistance training.  When he is discovered, John Boy gets the “if it seems too good to be true-it probably is” talk from Daddy. 

Now we can order from tv, catalog, magazine and internet.  We can order just about anything… We would never have to leave our homes again.  I order fun shirts and electronics from Woot.com, books from Amazon and craft stuff (including yarn) from Crafty.com

But Wait-There’s More!

In the 1990s the Infomercial took over.  Exercise videos, diet systems, gadgets to make our lives easier and better.  Not that the infomercial is bad-it brought us some awesome products: Bare Minerals, Oxi-Clean and others.   You’ve seen them and probably thought about buying one or ten… sandwich maker, pajama jeans, pocket fisherman, stompies, and the Old Brooklyn Lantern.

As I’ve told you in the past- Mom watches a lot of Hallmark Movie Channel.  I have been convincing her that there are better things on TV than watching those movies all day.  So now most of what she sees on HMC is Murder She Wrote and other mystery shows on the weekends (This weekend is Perry Mason.)  The result of watching all this HMC is that we see all the short infomercials all the time.

Because of these infomercials, I visit the “As seen on TV” section of Wal-Mart and Magic Mart.  I have an alumawallet, Magic Mesh, Salon Express and the Genie Bra.  And Mom got herself and Orgreenic Skillet.  The infomercial for each of these is true… but there is always that little extra that they leave out.
My Genie bras are great, comfortable and supporting-kind of like a sports bra that lifts and separates.  What you don’t know is that they come with these triangle panels that you have to remove before washing and reinsert after.  The bras would work without the panels but they would not lift or separate.  Plus, you have to pull it up to get it positioned right.  I tried to pull it on over my head to my waist then pull it up from there, it rolled up and I had to take it off to get it unrolled.  My only problem with my Alumawallet is that it isn’t big enough.  We have used the Magic Mesh so well that it is falling apart.  The Orgreenic isn’t better than any other non-stick skillet.  The Salon Express needs a steady hand, room to spread out and special nail polish.

That said-I still buy this stuff… and what I’m really waiting for is Tag-Away, a supposedly natural way to remove skin tags.  2 bottles for $19.99 plus shipping and handling…