Category Archives: Conspicuous consumption

May 14, 2013 · 5:46 am

It’s What’s For Dinner

As someone who once worked for a United Nations organization (The World Health Organization), I’ve often been frustrated at the lack of respect that the U.N. receives, especially here in the U.S. I mean the U.N.’s mission, as stated in the organization’s Preamble is truly inspiring:

PREAMBLE

WE THE PEOPLES OF THE UNITED NATIONS DETERMINED

to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind, and
to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small, and
to establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained, and
to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom,

AND FOR THESE ENDS

to practice tolerance and live together in peace with one another as good neighbours, and
to unite our strength to maintain international peace and security, and
to ensure, by the acceptance of principles and the institution of methods, that armed force shall not be used, save in the common interest, and
to employ international machinery for the promotion of the economic and social advancement of all peoples,

HAVE RESOLVED TO COMBINE OUR EFFORTS TO ACCOMPLISH THESE AIMS

Accordingly, our respective Governments, through representatives assembled in the city of San Francisco, who have exhibited their full powers found to be in good and due form, have agreed to the present Charter of the United Nations and do hereby establish an international organization to be known as the United Nations.

* * *

Now in spite of its noble mission, there are whole swaths of folks in America who have a phobia about the U.N. Really! They are stockpiling weapons because they fear the black helicopters of the U.N. that will invade the U.S. any minute now. They are sure that they will need to fight those nasty aggressors who might force Peace on them. Or Love. Or Brotherhood. These are not considered the sanest people in the U.S. of A., I might add.

So you will understand my concern when I read that the U.N. has figured out how to fight obesity. I’m sure that the folks who are currently stockpiling guns and ammo will soon be hoarding bacon, Spam and scraple, too. And I’m not sure I can blame them.

Because I just read in Reuters that on Monday the U.N. released a report that says that “the health benefits of consuming nutritious insects could help fight obesity.”

Ewwwwwwwwww.

Dinner! Who’s Hungry?
Reuters – Photograph by Catherine Hornby

If you’re looking for me, I’ll be at the grocery store. Buying Spam.

68 Comments

Filed under Childhood Traumas, Conspicuous consumption, Humor, Stupidity

Tagged as Crazy people, Creepy Crawlers, Ewwwwwwww, Humor

May 13, 2013 · 11:57 am

Can You Have Some Privacy, Please?

You’ll have to forgive the ironic setting of this story, given the topic. But it happened just this way. Really. Would I lie to you? I mean if no money was involved?

* * *

Today I was by myself in the Ladies Room, minding my own business in my little gray stall. OK, so I was doing my own business in my little gray stall, when the door opened and another woman walked in. I couldn’t see her. In fact, thankfully, I never saw her.

She hadn’t taken two steps into the bathroom when her cell phone rang.

Sometimes, you really should just let it go to voice mail.

This is what I heard from my, ummm, perch.

“Hello?”

…

“Speaking.”

…

“What were the results?”

Now I’ve had enough calls like this to know that she was talking with someone from her doctor’s office. I cleared my throat to let her know that someone else was in the house. Loudly. I tapped my feet. (I did not, however, cop a wide stance as I wasn’t in Minneapolis.)

… … …

“Oh, do I have to take anything for that?”

…. … … …

“You mean I have to go back and tell my partners?”

I coughed. Loudly. I thought about starting to sing.

… … … …

“How many do you think I need to tell?”

…

“Can you figure out who I got it from?”

At this point, I DID start to sing, loudly:

And with that sound, finally, the tone-deaf woman realized that there was someone else in the bathroom, and perhaps this wasn’t the best place to discuss her newly diagnosed Sexually Transmitted Disease.

But you know this whole thing made me realize that folks just don’t understand true cell phone etiquette:

If you let me listen to the start of the call, I get to hear the finale.

81 Comments

Filed under Conspicuous consumption, Health and Medicine, Humor, Stupidity

Tagged as Crazy people, Humor, Stupidity

March 9, 2013 · 12:15 am

OneOhFive and Counting

Using the telephone when you live in a country where you don’t speak the language is daunting. You know each time that you’re going to look like an idiot. You can’t resort to the pointing and grunting to make yourself understood that you do in person. Instead, you’re left sounding like a moron; it’s inevitable.

Normally for me looking like a dork is not a problem. Since that’s how I look frequently, I make the best of it. I even enjoy it more often than not. And those experiences often become my funniest stories.

But when you make an idiot out of yourself because you can’t communicate, it’s different. If you can’t laugh with the person who witnessed it, well, it takes the fun out of it. All you’re left with is feeling like a lonely idiot.

Knowing that humiliation would follow, each and every time I picked up the phone in when we lived in French-speaking Switzerland, my heart dropped to the bottom of my stomach while my pulse rate and blood pressure soared. I was on my way to the Idiot Zone.

And that’s just how I felt when I picked up the phone to call dog breeders. We’d opted for a pure bred puppy because we had a little kid (Jacob was 6) and because my husband is a lawyer and thinks that he can research things and know what he’s getting into. Yeah right.

Anyway, in early 1998 we needed a puppy. I needed a puppy. My son needed to grow up with a dog since he had no siblings and needed someone to talk to. John got to choose the breed: An English Springer Spaniel.

That morning as always, I looked at the phone with trepidation. Shit, I thought. I picked it up and dialed.

“Bonjour. Je m’appelle Elyse. Vendez-vous les chiots?” Hi. My name is Elyse. Do you sell puppies? [Yes, I’m quite the French conversationalist. In English you can’t shut me up.]

“Would you like to speak English?” said the woman on the other end of the line.

“Yes!!!!” I said with tears of relief/delight/I-don’t-have-to-sound-like-a-dope coming to my eyes. I couldn’t believe my luck. All I could think of was just how lucky I was to not have to try to negotiate in French. Or German. Or Italian. Or Romanch. Instead, on the other end of the phone was someone who spoke English! A woman who could understand me and respond. A woman with puppies!

“Very good. I can speak English. And I have puppies. Can you visit them tomorrow?”

“Yes!”

A plan was set. We got directions and headed out the next morning to pick out a puppy!

All the puppies were in a room with some cushions and blankets on the floor. The three of us made ourselves comfortable and started cuddling puppies.

Jacob picked up the puppy closest to him and put it in his lap the way Madame Carasco, the breeder, showed him, as the puppies were still quite young. But another puppy waddled over to Jacob, pushed the first puppy off of Jacob’s lap and settled himself down for the long haul with my 7 year old son. It was the only smart thing that dog has ever done.

“Look! He loves me Mom!”

“He Loves Me, Mom!”

And then I asked the price.

Cooper is descended from a line of top show dogs that have been winning Swiss and other European competitions for generations, going back to Roman times, I’m pretty sure. Cooper couldda been a contender. But I’m not that kind of a girl (and we’re not that kind of a family). His perfect physique, beautiful coloring and his full (not cut off) tail “showed” only to friends and family. And he’s never whined once about lost glory. What a guy!

But he loves me, Mom!

Today is Cooper’s 105^th Birthday, his 15^th in human years. He’s an old man now, a puppy no longer. His joints are stiff, he can’t walk upstairs by himself these days, and is so blind that he only realizes we have entered or left a room by sniffing the air.

You know, in hindsight, I’m glad I didn’t ask the price on the phone. Because Cooper has been well worth every centime.

92 Comments

Filed under Conspicuous consumption, Dogs, Family, Geneva Stories, Humor, Mental Health, Pets

Tagged as Dogs, Family, Humor

December 18, 2012 · 10:27 pm

All I Want

For years they’ve irritated me. Those vile ads.

Around here where I live, there are always a bunch of shiny new cars on the road on Christmas Day. Lexuses. Mercedes. BMW.

It’s so annoying to see the conspicuous consumption. Folks who, on top of every other luxury they already have or have gotten that morning, need to have a brand, spankin’ new luxury car. Jeez.

Well, that’s how I felt until today.

Today I’ve decided to jump on the “gimme” bandwagon and demand a new car for Christmas.

Now, there are three problems with my new plan.

First, I don’t know quite how to convince my husband that I’ve changed my mind. You see for years I’ve been commenting on how disgusting, decadent and indecent it was to expect someone to buy you an expensive car like that. It’ll be tough, but I’m pretty sure I can convince John of my new found fondness for fenders. I am quite an actress, you see.

Second, I’m not sure exactly where we’re going to come up with the money. But it’s never all that tough to come up with $100 K in cool cash around the Holidays, is it? We can cash in everything for it because I’m worth it.

The third and last problem is the most difficult one.

I’m really not sure how I can drive my current car to the dealership to trade it in without John seeing the enormous dent I decorated it with this evening.

I wonder if I can trade my car in for a used AMC Gremlin. That’ll impress the neighbors.

92 Comments

Filed under Conspicuous consumption, Driving, Family, Humor, Stupidity, Traffic

Tagged as Bad days, Family, Humor, Stupidity, Traffic

December 13, 2012 · 12:58 pm

Babes in Toyland – Angie and Me

Angie and I came up to the knees of these guys

We did it! Angie of Childhood Relived and I met for lunch! It was memorable. Sadly, though, we did stay in this decade, the 2010s (which sounds really weird). We simply couldn’t work in time travel back to the 1980s. Traffic congestion, you see.

We had wonderful plans, Angie and I. Tours. Nostalgia. Archie Bunker and the Smithsonian’s American Museum that contains just the right tidbits of crap from TV Land as brilliantly suggested by Darla of She’s a Maineiac.

But there was one thing that we didn’t factor in ahead of time. Now, what do you suppose that might be.

If you’re guessing that it’s the fact that neither Angie nor I knows how to shut up, “Come On Down.” Yup, we spent a 2 hour lunch fighting for air time. I had my stories; Angie had hers. It was close, but I think Angie won. I want a re-match.

Still, we did do a tour of DC. Sort of.

First of all, none of the restaurants I’d suggested in my earlier post um, worked out. Still, the restaurant we went to is a Washington landmark: The Old Ebbitt Grill. The restaurant has been there for centuries! Famous people have eaten there – Lincoln! Grant! Wilson! FDR! Checkers! It is a piece of Washington history that is seriously cool. Except that it didn’t happen at the place where we had lunch. Yup, we had lunch at the new Old Ebbitt Grill. The OLD Old Ebbitt Grill was torn down not long after I got to DC in 1979. I’m sure there is no connection. And I did tell Angie that we were having an expensive lunch in a fraudulent facility. That’s our nation’s capital for you.

Still, we had a great lunch. Of course, neither of us would stop talking. As a result, the food wasn’t as hot as it might have been. Perhaps we should have sent it back. A good restaurant should factor conversation in.

Anyway after our long lunch, we realized that we really didn’t have time for much else, so we decided to walk around the White House and gloat about Obama’s re-election. Of course, we didn’t know that that night Barack, Michelle and the girls were going to light the White House Christmas Tree. In public. With thousands of folks in attendance. Apparently, everybody in DC, VA and MD was there. So Angie and I, still never pausing our conversation, swam upstream against thousands of folks determined to see the festivities.

Here are the pictures. Angie did her best Angie-1980s in front of some of Washington’s most impressive tourist destinations.