I Have the Mind of a 4 Year-Old!

A big raspberry to all those people who've told me that I'm wasting my years of education by not having a paying job! I just won the second official Neatorama.com "Decipher the Doodle" Contest and scored a T-shirt from the Neatorama shop by astutely deciphering the meaning behind this drawing by a 4 year-old:
It's obviously depicting the happy child and a pet turtle in its home environment. Who says I don't use my training in child development and psychology?

A Booty Call to Ignore

A model wears Booty Pop panties (on right) to plump her posterior
(amazing how it improves her posture and gives her bigger boobs too!-lolamouse)

For centuries, women have wriggled into girdles and other slimmers to minimize their rear ends. Now, a fascination with the hind-quarters of celebrities like Beyoncé and Kim Kardashian is fueling a booming market for undergarments that amplify the derrière.

On Booty Pop's late-night infomercials, which began airing in December, viewers are entreated to "forget about doing endless squats—and cosmetic surgery, who can afford that?" as models prance around in tight jeans flaunting their backsides.

What will the marketing gurus think of next to torture us women?!! The above drivel is an actual advertisement for a product called "Booty Pop." Booty Pop is not an alternative sexual activity but an undergarment with built-in pads to "plump" one's hindquarters. Consider it a push-up bra for your ass. Apparently, it is now not only OK to have "junk in the trunk," it's sexy. Flat or "pancake" butts are OUT.

Of course, women are still required to have tiny waists, thin thighs, and no hips along with the perfectly rounded and perky derriere. Thus, Booty Pop to the rescue! I can think of no bigger pleasure than wearing panties with padding sewn into them all day long, especially in the summer. Put me down for 7 pairs, one for every day of the week! How sexy I will feel carrying around two big pads on my ass. I bet they get really nice and heavy when you sweat too! It'll be just like wearing a wet diaper all day or pasting Kotex all over your backside. I'll have to fight the men off with a stick!

I'm waiting for the day when belly blumps are considered the new sexy (you women know what I mean, that wedge of fat under your navel that you can't get rid of?) I can just see it now: "Don't waste all your time and money buying and eating high calorie food to try and get that sexy 'muffin top!' With our new Muffin Topper Pantie, the muffin top look you so envy can be yours!" Millions of skinny chicks will flock to the lingerie department to buy panties that give them belly bulges. I won't have to because mine will be au natural! It will be a proud moment.

Read My Legs!

Okay, I need someone to tell me when my legs were taken away and mysteriously replaced with middle-aged lady legs! Did this happen that night when I took one too many Restoril? Oh, I admit, the general shape of the aforementioned limbs are the same--fairly long, chunky in the thigh, cankles (damn my Polish/Russian peasant ancestry!)-- but there seems to be a road map of the entire United States printed on them! With lots of little red dots to indicate major cities and brown freckles to locate natural landmarks, you could travel from here to Los Angeles and back with stops at Mt. Rushmore, the Grand Canyon, and South of the Border by using my gams for navigation! Where did all the blue, green, and purple lines come from?!! They were NOT here yesterday!

The mystery deepened as I realized that all of my "young leg" marks are still visible. I can still see the scar on my upper thigh from when I fell on the playground in elementary school! If I can still see an elementary school scar, I can't be that old! And here's a scar from when I fell trick-or-treating with my daughter when she was a toddler. See, I'm still a young mom! It doesn't matter that my daughter is now 14 if I can see the decade old scar! And here are numerous bruises that I acquired just recently from...I don't remember, just being my uncoordinated self and bumping into objects, which is what I do. I'm ACTIVE! And rug burns from...well, never mind. I'm active.

So, how to reconcile this disconnect between how I feel and perceive myself and the legs that confronted me while doing downward facing dog in yoga? Maybe I'll grow to accept my middle-aged lady legs. I can look at them as showing the road map of where my life has taken me, metaphorically speaking. But if during the night my ass mysteriously turns into a big, ol' middle-aged lady butt, some heads are gonna roll!

My Underwear Is Broadcasting Messages!

"How would you like it if, for instance, one day you realized your underwear was reporting on your whereabouts?" —California State Senator Debra Bowen, at a 2003 hearing<sup>[85]

You better watch your back(side) if you shop at Walmart because that's not just the paranoid ramblings of someone who needs her Risperdol dose upped. The RFIDs are here, there, and everywhere, and they may just be in your Fruit of the Looms.

For those who are less tech-savvy than myself (is anyone less tech savvy than myself? Maybe the Amish?), RFID (pronouned ARE-FID) is Radio Frequency Identification. RFIDs are little transmitter thingies that can be programmed to transmit information about whatever object they are attached to. They are used now in Easy Pass Smart Lanes where the RFID on your transponder sends a signal to the reader in the toll lane, and your toll is automatically deducted from your account. Some libraries use them instead of barcodes to keep track of who checks out books and which books are in their inventories. Stores have begun using RFIDs to keep track of inventory also. By having an RFID on each item as it leaves the distribution center, that item can be tracked to a store, to a shelf, to a customer. The store knows when more items need to be ordered. Eventually, lines in grocery stores may become passe as a scanner "reads" the RFIDs on each item in your grocery cart as you walk out the door and automatically deducts the money from your bank account.

Walmart is a big proponent of RFID technology. They claim it will save money by helping them keep track of inventory and decrease theft. As Walmart goes, so go most other big retailers.

Many identity documents, such as passports, credit cards, loyalty cards, etc. already have RFID technology embedded in them. Soon, many of our purchases will also. All of this is convenient, efficient, and smart, but consider: Do you really want a record of where you go, what you buy, what you read available not just to the people and/or companies who are "supposed" to have the information (what happened to privacy anyway?) but to anyone who is smart enough to figure out how to hack into the system? And if they can hack into the system to get your information, what about hacking into RFID systems to change information? "No, really, honey, I didn't check out the complete Marquis de Sade and buy a leather whip and handcuffs! That must be someone else's info!"

I've heard that RFIDs can be disabled by putting them in the microwave for a couple of seconds. Maybe after I remove all the labels on any new undies, I'll nuke them for a second or two just to be sure. I'll have nice, warm undies and they won't be able to rat me out!</sup>