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…

I feel so old

I’m almost 40-Will be on Dec 30^th if you want to send gifts (I like gifts.)  I rarely feel or think of myself as my age; most of the time, in my head, I’m closer to 28 and apparently I look like I could claim it.  There are times when I’ll be talking to someone and think that they are within 5 years of my age, only to find later that they are 25!  Then there are times when I’ll be talking to someone and think they are way older…he was 35 but I think it may have been the bad mustache!

For most of my life I have felt younger; I think it had something to do with being younger in grade school.  I was right at the end of the cutoff date for starting kindergarten.  In grade school all but one of my classmates was older than me.  Then when I got to High School, I was the youngest in my graduating class-I think this may be a contributing factor in my inferiority complex.  It’s my own fault- when registration time came, my parents let me decide.  I sometimes wonder how differently I would have been had I chosen to wait.

There are a few things that make me feel my age:

finding out someone I used to babysit for is married with teenage children.

Seeing how grown the children of my family and friends are-especially if I haven’t seen the child in years.

Trying to go without sleep-I love to sleep and the thought of an all-nighter now scares the crap out of me.  I was a teen librarian for over 5 years and teens LOVE Lock-Ins-they get all hyper and sugar loaded.  The last one I worked was as a favor for a friend (I had already been fired and wanted to feel connected to the library field again)-it took about 4 cups of coffee, lots of candy and hyper teens to keep me going all night… I had fun then I went home and slept for 8 straight.

And now I can add road trips-not all road trips… just ones that include my Mom and shopping.  Last weekend we went to Dayton, OH for my Cousin Susie’s wedding reception.  The drive there was fine, we spent the night before in Lexington at Paul and Lori’s house (older brother and his wife-who puts up with us a lot.) The reception was great, laid back and very casual.  The hotel -Hampton Inn and Suites- was wonderful… mmm squishy bed with squishy pillows…if only there had been a hot tub. Nice helpful staff and hot breakfast included.  Sunday was the shopping day-I knew this going into the trip-I was the one using Google Maps.  I knew as soon as I had both Jungle Jim’s International Market and Sam’s Club on the same day I was in trouble.  I made Mom agree that we weren't going through ALL of Ikea this time.  There were a few other stops in there too… mostly places at least 2 hours from home.  We finally finished at Sam’s at around 6PM and headed toward home.  My back hurt from walking at Mom’s slower pace and I was glad that I had worn sneakers and had flip-flops to change into.

We pulled unto Food City in Hazard to “get the last few things on my list” (-Mom) at around 11:30. I fell asleep in the car while Mom went in to get bread and OJ.  I was completely wiped out the next day and I’m not sure I’ve completely recovered yet.  Today I feel about 35, so I’m almost there.