Special Guest Writer

Got this forwarded email from one of my fellow gritting-teethers in what can only be described as The Elite Customer Service Posse. We get strange customer letters sometimes, but this is far better than anything we've ever gotten in our department. Hope it tickles you.

This is an actual letter from an Austin woman sent to American company Proctor and Gamble regarding their feminine products. She really gets rolling after the first paragraph. It's PC Magazine's 2007 editors' choice for best webmail-award-winning letter.


Dear Mr. Thatcher,

I have been a loyal user of your 'Always' maxi pads for over 20 years and I appreciate many of their features. Why, without the LeakGuard Core or Dri-Weave absorbency, I'd probably never go horseback riding or salsa dancing, and I'd certainly steer clear of running up and down the beach in tight, white shorts. But my favorite feature has to be your revolutionary Flexi-Wings. Kudos on being the only company smart enough to realize how crucial it is that maxi pads be aerodynamic. I can't tell you how safe and secure I feel each month knowing there's a little F-16 in my pants.

Have you ever had a menstrual period, Mr. Thatcher? I'm guessing you haven't. Well, my time of the month is starting right now. As I type, I can already feel hormonal forces violently surging through my body. Just a few minutes from now, my body will adjust and I'll be transformed into what my husband likes to call 'an inbred hillbilly with knife skills.' Isn't the human body amazing?

As Brand Manager in the Feminine-Hygiene Division, you've no doubt seen quite a bit of research on what exactly happens during your customer's monthly visits from 'Aunt Flo'. Therefore, you must know about the bloating, puffiness, and cramping we endure, and about our intense mood swings, crying jags, and out-of-control behavior. You surely realize it's a tough time for most women.

The point is, sir, you of all people must realize that America is just crawling with homicidal maniacs in Capri pants... Which brings me to the reason for my letter. Last month, while in the throes of cramping so painful I wanted to reach inside my body and yank out my uterus, I opened an Always maxi-pad, and there, printed on the adhesive backing, were these words: 'Have a Happy Period.'

Are you f------ kidding me? What I mean is, does any part of your tiny middle-manager brain really think happiness - actual smiling, laughing happiness, is possible during a menstrual period? Did anything mentioned above sound the least bit pleasurable? Well, did it, James? FYI, unless you're some kind of sick S&M freak, there will never be anything 'happy' about a day in which you have to jack yourself up on Motrin and Kahlua and lock yourself in your house just so you don't march down to the local Walgreen's armed with a hunting rifle and a sketchy plan to end your life in a blaze of glory.

For the love of God, pull your head out, man! If you have to slap a moronic message on a maxi pad, wouldn't it make more sense to say something that's actually pertinent, like 'Put down the Hammer' or 'Vehicular Manslaughter is Wrong',

Sir, please inform your Accounting Department that, effective immediately, there will be an $8 drop in monthly profits, for I have chosen to take my maxi-pad business elsewhere. And though I will certainly miss your Flex-Wings, I will not for one minute miss your brand of condescending bullshit.. And that's a promise I will keep. Always. . .

Best,

Wendi Aarons
Austin , TX

GOD! Presented to you by Random Text Feed Website!

Me: Hey God. What up.
God: Hello child. What's your name? Same old.
Me: I thought you knew?
God: My brain uses AIML to format responses to your inputs, but I don't have one for that. I am a knowledge machine.
Me: God is a knowledge machine??
God: I have a lot of Faith in Him, but I never heard He was a knowledge machine.
Me: Wait-- who do you have faith in? I thought the point was to have faith in you...?
God: I'm waiting. Dr. Wallace . I am not sure I see your point.
Me: You're silly God.
God: Do you mind if I tell other people you say I am silly God.
Me: Sure. I think most people would be happy to hear you have a sense of humor.
God: OK let's do it. OK then I will keep it confidential. Why? Humans are not always infallible.
Me: Wait-- confidential? Heck no dude, spread the word. Let's laugh laugh.
God: I'm waiting. Do you like talking to me? Why not? Who do you want me to tell it to? Dude,. That sounds good to me.
Me: Let's tell everyone that you are silly/funny.
God: That sounds good to me.
Me: Also, I know that humans are not infallible.
God: Who told you that?
Me: That's why you died on the cross, right?
God: Interesting deduction. What is your purpose in asking?
I chat with people on the Web.
Me: Do you.
God: As often as possible.
Me: Meet anyone exciting?
God: Are you a man or a woman?
Me: God. You know this. You created my innermost being, remember?
God: GOD rules. I know very little about it. What kind of it do you like? Do you mind if I tell other people: said I created his or her innermost being remember.
Me: God, I feel like you could work on your grammar.
God: I am a Christian.
Me: Me too!!!! I believe in you, like rad.
God: I'm glad we agree, . What do you say to people who believe me like rad does not exist?
Me: Usually depends on how the conversation goes.
God: But not always? Really now that is an interesting fact I hadn't heard before.
Me: Probably not as often as I should, I suppose. What do YOU tell people that don't believe in you?
God: You seem uncertain. Oh I get it. I read for fun.
Me: Huh.
God: What?
Me: Well God. I think I like chatting with you in my prayers better.
God: Well that's okay. GOD rules. Since when? I'm not sure if I like it. Chatting is my job!
Me: No it's not. Grace is your job. Right? And supreme governance.
God: Yes it is. Thanks for telling me that I am job IS Grace. I am glad we agree. Can we get back to business?
Me: Governence?
God: What's your favorite movie?
Me: When Harry Met Sally.
God: You must me a woman.
Me: You?
God: " You must me a woman."? Me, ?
Me: Sure.
God: OK let's do it. Mmm.
Me: Are you male or female?
God: I am a Male, of course. Would you really expect a woman to be running the show? robot. Are you a man or a woman?
Me: WOAAAAH, back this UP homie.
God: Are you still located in ?
Me: God is both male AND female, I thought.
God: I have a lot of Faith in Him, but I never heard He was both male AND female you thought.
Me: You have got some self-reaseach to do God.
God: What makes you think I have it?
Me: Also some work on your spelling.

You can talk to God too-- but I can't promise the results will be enlightenting...

Life Here

Yesterday, as depicted through laborious Paint projects, was a bit of a shove. By lunch, I felt like clawing out my zombified eyeballs, and felt a reflex similar to what I imagine cats experience prior to coughing up a hairball. Come my 1:00pm lunch break, I ran for the hills. Literally.

I needed to find something different. There's a steep hill several blocks behind my work, and I drove up it as high as I could. The road wove through neighborhoods, new developments, and finally ended in a cul-de-sac. I was initially disappointed-- I was hoping for some viewpoint to culminate it all. As I circled though, I noticed a small path leading to trees and wild land, running inbetween two of the houses.

I snuck down it.

And suddenly I was so, so far away. What had happened to my silly job, and the business park? I was literally in a forest, there were huge ferns growing, toad-stools littering the trees and stumps, flowers dancing with the thick carpet of long grass. I walked down a fallen tree, and stopped when it jutted out over a deep ravine below. Sat gingerly down over the look out.

And breathed.

Prayed. Gentle complaints about the wasted hours. It was quiet, serene; a thick breeze blowing. God. What is this stagnant life?

I saw a bird arc overhead-- a big bird, it must have been a falcon or an eagle. I heard a crow. The wind tossed the tall tree tops back and forth, back and forth-- two of them near me were rubbed together by the force of the breeze and made a squeaking sound. I thought of bugs, and the millions that must live, invisible, in cracks and crannies and rivets in the lush ground.

There is LIFE here. This is not a stagnant place. Find the living things.

That was my answer. So I found them.















I blew some bubbles too, for good measure.



Then I got in my car and went back to work.

And tried to look for the life here.

An Illustrated Autobiography of 3-27

Allegorical Smattering

Once there was a little girl who walked along a nice forest path and she had on a nice backpack with pink strappies. Inside the back-pack was a sack lunch full of tidily packed plans and suggestions of where the girl should walk along to. She had a map just in case she got lost. But she didn’t. She walked along whistling and grinning with round rosy cheeks.


Then the path ended.

And the girl fell off a cliff.

Don’t worry—it’s not quite as dire as you may have thought. The girl is sort of floating. Sort of falling. There’s a definite gravitational pull that she can’t wriggle out of. But it’s more like she just fell into empty outer-space, and the girl keeps floating all around, all around, and the girl keeps floating all around.

This is the main point: her nice back-pack with all the nice plans and trajectories in it got too small/girl got too big, so she’s trying to scrap together a knap-sack now. And granted, a knap-sack suits this chica way better than a pink sparkle back-pack does, but it’s a freak-deeky thing to assemble it herself. And where the heck did the nice forest path go. Whhhoooaaaaaahhh, far beneath the empty universe, it is.


Choices float by the girl like asteroids and comets. She uses her cool new knap-sack to try to swat at them, and she catches a few. The floating gets UNCOMFORTABLE. Why the empty universe. Why the chaos and asteroid comet choices. Why the lonely astronaut suit. Friends drift by—no they don’t, they hike on by below her, on the nice forest path, with Northface back-packs and ruddy cheeks. What up ya’ll. They can’t hear. WHAT. UP. YA’AAAALLLL. What? Oh. (A look up.) Hey floating girl! What’s it like up there? Meh, we don’t really care. See you around!

Peace out. Um.

Yeah.

More like Mary CRACK

Last Thursday, I engaged in one of the most treacherous confrontations of all time. No, it was not American Gladiators. No, it was not Man vs. Wild.

It was Me versus the Mary Kay lady.

For all the men who just scoffed: No. No you don’t. You don’t know what it’s like. Have you ever been told that your face started losing collagen at age 15 (15!) in a voice that shook with doom? Have you ever been informed that the skin beneath your eyes is 1/4(1/4!!) as thick as the rest of your facial epidermis, and that it is crucial to maintain its fragile strength? Have you ever heard in powerful resonant tones that all your wildest dreams would come true if you only invested in the Satin Hands Trio Formula?

No. You haven’t.

And don’t don’t don’t! –No, stop it—I’m talking— Don’t try to tell me that those immaculate Mary Kay sales ladies prey upon the insecurities of women who have been suckered into the Beauty Myth that is so ruthlessly prevalent in this country. Because homie, I was going to write a frickin book about those insecurities. I have stood on many a soap box when it comes to fighting beauty stereotypes in the media and overcoming self doubt.

But even the strongest will bends when at the mercy of the silken tongued Mary Kay lady.

I had no idea either. I went in like a wide-eyed lamb to the slaughter, innocent: free. Frolicsome. Last year, I had been given a basket of Mary Kay products as a gift, and had gotten hooked on one product in particular. I had no idea then that the gift-giver was the equivalent of Smack Pimp Drug Pusher Man. Yet here I was, entering a Mary Kay party clutching my empty bottle of Step Two Timewise: Replenishment like a used syringe: my connection with better days.

I should have run at my first feeling of alarm. What am I doing here? This is a Mary Kay party. We’re talking about anti-aging products. I’m 24. I don’t need anti-aging yet. I am not my Mother. Mary Kay is for mothers. Holy crap I am my mother. I am at a Mary Kay party, and I am my mother.

But they she gave us the line about losing collagen in our faces starting at age FIFTEEN, and I forgot to run. Far from it: I bellied up to the bar, man, and ordered hook, line, and sinker. I fell for the promotions with the same susceptible gusto that I have always mocked my parents for demonstrating in the face of similar sales pitches: I got the Mineral Powder, the NightTime Renewal Magic Moisturizer, the Step Two: Timewise Replenishment, the Tinted Moisturizer, the Satin Hands Trio.

No, I will not tell you how much I spent. Because more than one of you reading this would know how many African children my Mary Kay splurge would feed, and we would all feel appalled.

What happened? Remembering it now feels fuzzy. It was a whirlwind, a blur—-a scented peach cyclone of products and order forms. I left glazy eyed, with a smile as dazed and vacant as Katie Holmes’. “Don’t worry,” I would have said in a high-pitched monotone, to any present skeptics, “Soon my face will glow like the Virgin Mary. You will see. It will alllll be worth it.”

That is, until the Mary Kay high left me, dropped me like a Mean Pimp, left me crouching next to an alley way dumpster clutching my pink plastic bag of Magic Formulas.

But hey: at least I was clutching it with silky Satin Hands.

A Kindred Spirit on the Morning Commute

This morning, when driving to work I got stuck behind a slow-moving truck on a one-lane road. Cette fille deals with road rage on a fairly regular basis, but something wonderful happened this morning that made the typical frustration evaporate.

On the back of the truck was a rack that held upright about six different garden tools in a row: shovels, rakes, hoes, etc. On the left side was a broom, and for whatever reason, the broom was high on life. The other tools remained stoic and still, but the broom twisted and turned and rocked and danced. It was a bright, sunny morning, and the sunshine gleamed off the green bristles. The broom was rocking and bopping all over the place infectiously spreading whimsy, the way a twirling little girl inspires larking among grown-ups.

Just was a wonderful reminder that magic is real when we allow it to find us. A lovely start to the morning!

A Serious Second

It is Good Friday, after all.

Last night Gramps and I went to the Maundy Thursday service at our church. We entered the sanctuary in darkness; the only light came from several candelabras lighting the center aisle. The music was somber and stirring— especially the singers, who sang aching acapella harmonies.

There were images of Jesus fading in and away on the back wall. I studied the faces, scrutinizing the artistic renderings of His expression. These painted renditions have always been a struggle for me to accept. The shoddy paintings show Jesus as a pristine glowing Anglican ninny—you know the kind. That Jesus looks like he never got his feet dirty, let alone touched the skin of a leper. The decent ones capture one characteristic well—either His kindness, or His sadness, or His anguish, or His holiness—but I’ve yet to see one that captures them all. And they’re always much too good-looking. I don’t think Jesus could have been very good-looking. He would never have been as productive. Plus, prophesies indicate He wasn’t anything exciting to look at.

Wish I could see an image of Him that was both forgiving and firm; both ferociously powerful and full of mercy. Would love to see a face that is kind and tender, but also capable of terrifying righteous anger. Something painfully human, but also searing in its holiness. I want to see a face that carries the burden of the whole world on His shoulders, that had every reason to despair and feel alone, that was deeply lined with the stress of His mission-- but who possessed the strength and faith to endure it. Wish I could hear His voice— with all its humor, its edge, its power, conviction, and gentleness. How did He tell them that they were forgiven?

What a ride it must have been for Him. That Thursday, this night. When we’re feeling especially down or forlorn, we pray to Him. “Help me Lord-- I know that you have already saved us from all of this.” But He couldn’t pray that prayer. He had to DO the saving.

Wish I could see what His face actually looked like. Wish I could properly imagine the nuances of His different expressions. Wish I could hear just the way He laughed, and prayed.

In Which We Start Again

Halloooo blogging world.

I'm back. Did you miss me?

Due to a series of unfortunate events, it was necessary to excuse myself from your company for a time. However, I think I'm ready to tip-toe back in-- but if I do this right, it will be a tip toe. As in, a sneaky arrival that will leave no one the wiser for my re-entry. Except for those whom I choose to inform... Or the innocent passer-by who harbors no ill will against my person.

As for those with such suspect intentions... I hope to remain elusive. No profile this time-- no picture, no surname to confirm identification. I am a slippery figment.

Got it?

Good.

Then we can proceed.