There have been some rather eccentric gift ideas over the years – like those vacuum sealed plastic bags to store clothing and blankets in. The idea is to stuff the bag with about 57 sweaters, hook it up to the hose on a vacuum cleaner and suck the air out of the bag. The result is a rigid rectangle of plastic and fiber, three inches high, that weighs as much as a cement slab but will slide easily under the bed. I notice that the commercials never show someone opening the bag. I envision something akin to inflating a life raft in a very small room. Not a pretty sight. 

The Marshmallow Shooter was popular with college kids and juvenile minds in the office. This contraption would actually hold twenty or so large marshmallows and launch them 30 feet. I failed to see the fun in bouncing powdery, sticky stuff off of my chenille sofa and I kept thinking that I’d have to account for all of my marshmallows or I’d be sorry when the ants and cockroaches came calling.

This year is no exception for whacky widgets. Here are five of my favorites:

1. Snowball Maker

Marketed under the name “Sno-Baller,” this gizmo makes, well…balls of snow. Imagine salad tongs on steroids. To create the perfect snowball you pull the handles apart, dip the cupped ends into the snow and close the handles. The result is a snowball that will crumble on contact and doesn’t sting like a hand-packed snowball. It’s a great idea if you’re going to throw snowballs at old ladies. As an added bonus, the Sno-Baller keeps your mittens dry.  Anyone with that much of an aversion to snow should just throw virtual snowballs on the Wii. Hello… the idea of a snowball fight is Arctic survival of the fittest. Red welts and stiff mittens are the badges of courage. 

2. Battery-powered Eraser

This doohickey uses two AAA batteries and is touted as a gift for busy executives, students and accountants with a sense of humor. (Isn’t that last one an oxymoron?) Honestly, it rockets laziness to new heights. Erasers went out with the advent of computers; we now call those corrections “spell check.” The kicker is that while the batteries are NOT included, the package contains eleven erasers. Here’s my advice: If you can’t rotate your wrist back and forth effectively enough to use a standard eraser, you may want to see a doctor. And if you need eleven erasers to complete your task, it’s time to crumple up your paper and start over.

 3. Bag Resealer

This plastic bag resealer is made by iTouchless. The idea is to slide a small, handheld unit that looks a bit like a stapler across the top of any plastic bag to reseal it. It will generate enough heat to melt the ends together and cut off the excess plastic. Potato chips and other food stuffs stay airtight. If you plan to shop in bulk and divide nineteen pounds of pretzels into smaller units for storage then this device is for you. If you have teenagers in the house that rummage your cupboards all day, you will find that your bag will have to be resealed again and again, making the bag smaller and smaller until you are forced to resort to a Ziploc. (Hey, there’s an idea!) 

4. Smart Shoes

These shoes contain GPS technology and are designed to track the exact whereabouts of the wearer.  They even come with a barrier breach warning (think “electronic dog fence”) and claim to be “the smartest shoes you’ll ever own.” I don’t know about the smartest, but they certainly have my vote for the most invasive. Can you say ‘Big Brother is watching’? In all fairness, GPS shoes were designed with Alzheimer patients and their caregivers in mind. If the wearer of the shoes wanders out of a predetermined area – set by the caregiver – the caregiver will receive a warning via text message. The warning message is linked to a website which pinpoints the exactlocation of the wearer. 

It reminds me of a familiar apparatus from the 1990’s sold by a medical alarm company called LifeCall.  Doesn’t ring any bells? How about this pitch: “Help! I’ve fallen and I can’t get up!” LifeCall designed a pendant to be worn around the neck. Simply put, if the wearer needed help and wasn’t near a phone, the pendant could transmit a message to a medical dispatcher on their behalf. My grandmother had one. She kept forgetting to wear it. 

Like the LifeCall pendant, Smart Shoes were designed with noble intentions. But if granddad can’t remember his own name, don’t be surprised if he leaves the house wearing grandma’s pink fuzzy slippers and forgets the Smart Shoes in the closet.

5. Siri

My husband recently acquired the iPhone 4S and brought home an indefinite house guest by the name of Siri. This latest brainchild of Apple, Inc. is a cross between a genie in a bottle and a Stepford Wife. Siri is described as an intelligent software assistant that can be commanded to perform tasks such as dialing a phone number, taking a memo or checking the weather. Siri has an even-toned, female voice (at least for U.S. iPhone users) and does everything from exhibiting humor (ask her if she knows any jokes) to tacking on little buttering-up phrases like: “You’re welcome, Patrick. It’s always a pleasure.” 

It is said that, over time, Siri will adapt to the user’s individual preferences to personalize such tasks as making dinner reservations and reserving a cab. Good grief. My husband walks around the house speaking to her constantly to see what she will and won’t do for him. I’m not sure that’s an act I want to follow. Then again, maybe I can sweet talk her into doing the Christmas shopping for me.

Reality Television is the new kid on the block and he’s a bit of a bully. Remember when television used to be about entertainment? Whether it was humorous, informative or dramatic, television shows left the general public with a feeling like the grass might indeed be “greener on the other side.” Even soap operas painted a glamorous, always-land-on-your-feet lifestyle, albeit riddled with angst. 

Somewhere along the line, television viewing became less about entertainment and more about hype. ‘Trash television’ shows like Jerry Springer and Maury Povich began creeping in and titillating our senses. Soon after that, ‘big mouth television’ began gaining ground with shows like The View and The Talk. (Does America really need tips on mothering from Sharon Osbourne?) We are now scraping the bottom of the barrel with a new animal called Reality Television. Here’s a small sampling of the shows we can eradicate our brain cells with:

 Out-of-Touch with Reality

• Sister Wives: Kody Brown has four wives and 16 children. Superman or idiot?
• Wife Swap: Twice the nagging without any fun.
• 19 Kids and Counting: Time for husband Jim Bob to get a hobby.

 On the Cusp of Reality

• My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding: Male chauvinism with a twist.
• Bridezilla: Girls you’d never want to bring home to mother, let alone marry.
• Cake Boss: Eat the desserts or sleep with the fishes.

Lost All Sense of Reality

• Mob Wives: Bridezilla meets the Godfather.
• Swamp People: Where the humans are more frightening than the gators.
• Toddlers & Tiaras: Narcissism in the making.

Those of the viewing public who haven’t had their fill of nasty, back-stabbing, politically incorrect behavior on Reality TV shows thus far will be interested to hear that Roseanne Barr (yes, she is using her maiden name again) will be debuting her own brand of reality with a new, 16-episode show called “Roseanne’s Nuts.” (Is this something we didn’t already know?) Roseanne has purchased a macadamia nut farm in Hawaii and she – along with appearances from her children, grandchildren and boyfriend – portrays the life of a comedian turned (nut) farmer. 

Reality Television begs the question: at what point does a no-holds-barred airing of one’s dirty laundry cross the line from entertainment to sensationalism? Why do we watch situations on television that we’d cringe to see in public? Imagine trying to eat dinner at a restaurant with a Tiara Toddler at the next table or serving on the PTA with a group of Mob Wives. 

I’ll admit I was enamored with Deadliest Catch when it first aired. The men who made a living out of danger, daring and skill blew my mind. Still, a few marathon weekends of raspy-throated sea captains profaning everything from half-empty crab pots to “lazy” crewmen (who haven’t slept in four days) eventually grew wearisome. Personally it was annoying to hear more “bleeping” than dialogue.

Whether from boredom or blood-thirstiness, Reality TV peaks our morbid interest and shocks our senses. Whether we shake our heads in amazement or roll our eyes in exasperation, the “realistic” scenes that play out are like train wrecks that we can’t – or won’t – look away from. It’s a point I could ponder for a while, but it’s almost time for Cupcake Wars.

(Photo used with permission: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/)

Pet peeves: everyday irritations, periodic vexations, the pimples on the face of a flawless day. Even if you fancy yourself a blithe soul ready to embrace the serendipity of life, you’re bound to have a closet pet peeve or two.

For example, have you ever suspected that breakfast cereal companies are in bed with superglue manufacturers? I’m either getting weaker by the day or the liner bag in my box of Cheerios has enough adhesion on it to withstand any natural disaster. For that matter, so do the bags of potato chips and pasta in my pantry.  I suppose I could wrench these bags open by brute force but I prefer not to mop food off the floor every time I prepare dinner.

How about resealable freezer bags? I bought a five pound bag of chicken that has a resealable opening four inches long. Frigid drumsticks don’t exactly tumble out of an opening that small and I can barely wriggle my hand in to get the chicken. What’s more, subzero plastic isn’t pliable. Trying to line up an eighth inch ridge of stiff plastic in a rigid plastic track is laughable. I give it three tries before I reach for the twister ties.

Why can a family of four go through a gallon of milk in 2 days but leave a quarter cup of milk sloshing around in the bottom of the carton for a week? For the same reason that people will use the roll of toilet paper sitting on the back of the toilet while ½ sheet of TP flutters around the roll untouched. My advice to these folks: stop wiping your nose on the back of your sleeve and change the empty Kleenex box already.

Waiting in line is something we all learned in Kindergarten. It stands to reason, then, that anyone over the age of five – who hasn’t crawled out from under a rock this morning – knows that if several people are standing in a line, you take your place at the back of the line and wait your turn. Newsflash: the same rules apply when people get behind the wheel of a car.

In the film, Mr. Mom, Jack Butler (played by actor Michael Keaton) is laid off from his daytime job and finds himself propelled into the world of a stay-at-home mom. He bumbles along only to be met with the recurring phrase, “You’re doing it wrong!” In one classic scene he is taking his kids to school without any regard for the school’s directional drop-off procedure. He is met with honking horns, irate drivers and the crossing guard who says, “Hi Jack, you’re doing it wrong.”

So, for the record, if your coworkers drive in to the parking lot where it says ENTER and drive out of the lot where it says EXIT, take a hint. If you decide to go the opposite way, you’re doing it wrong. If you enter the circular driveway at your child’s school and there are already cars around the perimeter, you must wait behind the last car. If you pull up right in front of the building by starting a second lane of traffic (otherwise known as double parking), you’re doing it wrong. Say you are the fifth vehicle in a line of cars and the number two vehicle pulls out of line. You may NOT cut into line ahead of vehicles three and four because you’re in a hurry. Even if you don’t encounter a road rage situation, you can be sure all of the other drivers are mentally berating you and possibly cursing at you in the muffled privacy of their own vehicles. And, oh yes, YOU’RE DOING IT WRONG!

When my children were elementary age, the school supplies list was my number one pet peeve. Aside from spiral notebooks and Number 2 pencils the school requested things like hand sanitizer (so the students didn’t have to wash their hands in the bathroom), Clorox wipes (so the children could clean their own desks) and a bottle of Windex (so the lunchroom moms could clean fingerprints off the doors and counters). Twenty bottles of Windex? That’s a lot of finger prints. Why not get crazy and ask each child brought to bring a bottle of Lysol and a toilet brush? That way they could clean the bathrooms themselves and fire the Custodian.

While we’re on the subject of school, what is the deal with erasable pens? Since the days of feather quills, ink has been used for a document’s permanency. That’s why legal documents must be signed in ink. There exists a nifty little gadget to write with if you intend to erase something and change it at a later date. It’s called a pencil.

Like Jekyll and Hyde, pet peeves can transform even the easiest going personality into a pedantic madman. Fair warning, if you have me over for coffee and your Kleenex box is empty, I’m going to wipe my nose on your sleeve.

On September 11, 2011 – the 10^th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks – a ceremony will be held for the victims’ families and a Memorial will be dedicated. In addition, the U.S. Mint is producing 2 million commemorative silver medals inscribed with the words Always Remember.

Memorials like this are paradoxical at best; we’d just as soon put the mental anguish behind us and move forward but we dare not forget that our lives could change in an instant. They are a wake-up call to our apathy and bring focus to our fragile reality.

Author Lynne Truss explains: “[Memorials] swivel the historical telescope to a proper angle so that we see, however briefly, that we are not self-made; we owe an absolute debt to other people; a debt that our most solemn respect may acknowledge but can never repay.”

I have an odd memorial in my home. It is a framed photo of a pair of battered Army boots. I snapped the photo, myself, on the day I first saw the Vietnam Traveling Memorial Wall.

The Wall entered my parents’ tiny mountain town in northern California on a blistering hot, summer day. People lined the streets to get a glimpse of its arrival which was preceded by a caravan over 100 motorcycles ridden by Vietnam Veterans. The sight was magnificent. The Wall was set up in the football field of the high school and was open around the clock for the next four days.  

On the day that we visited the Wall my father looped his Army dog tags around his neck. He had been stationed in Korea during the Vietnam Conflict. When his tour was up, some of the soldiers in his unit were sent to Vietnam. That day he scanned the Wall for the names of men that he knew. I wish I could say that his was the only story like that but it wasn’t. All around us, Veterans moved slowly along the list of names, then paused and hung their heads. Their grief was nearly palpable.

That evening my mother took my father’s Army boots out of storage. She set a potted plant in each boot and displayed them in a favorite spot by a giant picture window in their sitting room.   My father’s name and identifying information – printed on the inside of each boot – was visible behind the plants. When I asked about it, my mother explained that it was a type of remembrance and that my father felt honored at this small gesture.

A framed picture of those boots now hangs next to my front door. Every so often, when a friend asks me about the picture, I have a clear memory of that summer day surrounded by Veterans who fought for me and the names of so many Veterans who died for my freedom.

Samuel Adams, one of the Founding Fathers of our nation, said, “We have received [the liberties of our country] as a fair inheritance from our worthy ancestors: they purchased them for us with toil and danger and expense of treasure and blood, and transmitted them to us with care and diligence.”

 Next week we will celebrate Independence Day. It will be commemorated with parades and flags and fireworks. But I hope, if just for a moment, we can stop long enough thank a Veteran, to “swivel the historical telescope,” and to remember how our Independence was won.

I recently had my first real-life encounter with an Extreme Couponer. I stood in line at the grocery store perusing the magazine covers in complete oblivion to the woman in front of me. The cashier was chattering away when suddenly she grew quiet. I picked up on the change in atmosphere and noticed 11 bags of industrial-sized, non-caloric sweetener on the conveyer belt. Good grief, I thought, who uses that much saccharin? Then I noticed fifty or so packages of gum and bottles of travel-sized hand sanitizer too numerous to count. The woman was poised with a small file box in hand, facing off with the cashier. I figured I was either in the presence of a gum-smacking, calorie conscious germaphobe or an Extreme Couponer.

 Miss Extreme Couponer had a nifty filing system in a container slightly smaller than a shoe box. It was stuffed with coupons, tabbed index dividers and colored sticky notes. Next to her purse was a 2-page, computer generated list of items complete with sizes, quantities and aisle numbers. I was dumfounded by this woman’s organization skills. My seven coupons – paper clipped to my super saver card – seemed paltry in comparison.

 I wish I could say that everyone was as fascinated with Miss Extreme Couponer as I was but most of the people behind me in line quickly assessed the situation and moved to a different aisle. The cashier wasn’t rude but she was far from enthusiastic since it seems to be store policy to ring e-v-e-r-y item over the scanner, one at a time. (As a side note, whatever happened to cashiers doing simple math on the registers? One package of Juicy Fruit multiplied by 117 packages – using function keys on the register – would be so much faster than 117 blips over the scanner.)

 The TLC Television Network has escalated public awareness of extreme couponing with a show called, you guessed it, “Extreme Couponing.” The network has combed the nation looking for the most fanatical coupon clippers and fashioned an entire television show around them. In one episode, the extreme couponer purchased 100 packages of dehydrated noodle meals, 210 packets of instant drink mix and was at the checkout counter for an hour and a half. The cashier admitted begrudging surprise at the customer’s total bill but was otherwise not a happy camper.

 In another episode, the extreme couponer used her coupons at a store that doubles coupon values and accepts them  on sale items. This couponer actually accrued a negative balance for which the store owed her money. She used the overage to purchase other items on her list and left the store with 2 shopping carts full of merchandise and a payout of  thirty one cents from the store.

I’ll admit that the concept of extreme couponing is impressive, if not brilliant. (If only there was a way to pay our income taxes the same way!) Still there are a few things to consider before jumping onto the extreme couponing bandwagon.

 Couponing and organization are two sides of the same coin. If you are a person who constantly misplaces your car keys or can’t ever find a pair of matching socks in your drawer then clipping coupons will only add to your daily disarray. You’re going to need a plan. Normal couponers thumbtack the coupons they’re going to use to the bulletin board and hopefully remember them on shopping day. Extreme couponers clip every coupon that crosses their path and file them accordingly. Hundreds of coupons need to be filed by item, expiration date, participating store, etc. You may need a binder with slide-in slots (think photo album) or something more like a recipe box. 

Storage area is a must. Whether you put up shelves in your garage or basement or dedicate a closet in your home to stockpile items, you’re going to need a moderate area to store your booty. Here again, organization is the key to knowing what you have. If you don’t have a shelving system you’re going to discover – too late – the stale crackers and flat soda pop behind the mountain of Styrofoam cups and toilet bowl brushes.

 Couponing takes time; time to gather, time to clip, time to file and catalogue in some say. If you don’t have several hours a week to do the work (and maintain it) so that you know what you have and can retrieve it quickly, you’re  going to fall out of love with couponing in a hurry. Many extreme couponers get together with each other to swap coupons and share ideas. Personally I think it’s a good idea to have a support group if you are involved with anything with the word “extreme” in front of it.

Finally, take caution in extreme couponing just for the sale of getting a deal. You may be able to bilk your grocer out of 68 boxes of contact lens solution but if you have 20/20 vision, what’s the point? Yes, there IS an underlying theme with extreme couponers that they are couponing with the intention of donating many items to Food Pantries and the like. This is a noble and worthwhile cause to be sure. But  keep in mind that an organization that needs peanut butter and breakfast cereal might be less than thrilled to receive 37 cases of antacid however selfless it may seem to the giver.

See you at the checkout.

My choir director issued a challenge to us at practice on Sunday afternoon: Pay attention to the ‘God moments’ in your life this week. A half hour later, on an unseasonably warm Sunday evening, my family and I went to look at a 1966 Mustang for sale 40 miles away.

The Mustang was a father-and-son project that began 15 years prior. The duo had logged countless hours together refurbishing and rebuilding the piece of machinery that was now for sale. The son, newly married, decided to sell the Mustang to pay for a down payment on his first house. His father, who had labored alongside his son on the project, was present to sanction to sale. My own husband and son stood next to the Mustang looking over its sleek body at the first father and son who had restored the car and painted it a fitting viper yellow. Four men of various ages circled the vehicle with a sort of reverence like seekers who had discovered a holy grail. So began the customary kicking of tires and grunting under the hood at belts and plugs and gizmos. Car-speak terms were exchanged and the four men cast long, appreciative looks at the sunny Mustang in their midst.

Not even the bare honesty of the sellers diminished the value of the car in the eyes of my son who eyed the vehicle hungrily, hoping to make the Mustang his first car. “The tires are shot, the emergency brake sticks like a bugger and the brakes really need to be replaced,” the sellers said. “Hang onto the wheel when you stop suddenly because the brakes pull hard to the right and a 1966 Mustang doesn’t have power steering.”

My husband made an offer and an odd look crossed the seller’s face. “That’s the exact amount I need for a down payment on my house,” he said. A half hour later, with the sun setting on an unseasonably warm Sunday evening, my daughter and I drove back toward home keeping a comfortable distance behind our men-folk driving the brilliant yellow Mustang in front of us.

Our vehicles crested a small hill on the outskirts of town. The left turn signal on the Mustang flashed as my husband approached a red stoplight at the intersection at the bottom of the hill. I braked to slow down to make the turn behind him when suddenly he picked up speed and charged through the intersection running the red light. Two oncoming vehicles crossed the intersection from either direction seconds after my husband lost hydraulic power. I was already in the turn lane with traffic bearing down on me. A police cruiser sat on the corner.

I passed the cruiser and saw the office working on his computer. I slowed to make a U-turn at the first turnout in the road while my daughter used her cellphone to call my husband. “Daddy said they just lost the brakes!” my daughter said. I headed back toward the intersection and pulled up behind the police cruiser.

“New Mustang, first car, no brakes,” I conveyed the gist of our plight to the officer.

My husband and son coasted to a stop in front of the only building on that road for miles; a newly built church. The parking lot was paved but the rest of the grounds did not have a blade of grass or a leaf of landscaping. They pushed the Mustang off the road and up the driveway to the empty parking lot. The church was dark except for the motion lights on the building and the illumination of the electronic marquee which cast heavenly glow over the Mustang.

The police officer pulled up in front of the Mustang which shimmered yellow and angelic in the neon and moonlight. “Now that’s a beauty,” he said. He waved his flashlight around the interior of the car.

“I ran the intersection…,” my husband began.

The officer nodded and motioned in my direction. “Your wife told me what happened. So you just bought this baby tonight, huh?” He smiled broadly at the Mustang. My husband beamed and popped the hood. Three men of various ages moved around the viper yellow body in candid admiration.

The tow truck arrived twenty minutes later. The driver stepped out of the cab and grinned at the Mustang. We later found out that he had three such vehicles of his own to show and to race. He lowered the ramp of the tow truck and hitched a large cable on either side of the axle under the car. He secured a winch to the cable and pulled the Mustang up the ramp. The driver raised the ramp to a horizontal position and the Mustang rose to an elevated position above our heads. The strobe lights on the tow truck bounced off the glossy paint of the Mustang in golden bursts of light against the dark sky. My husband rode in the tow truck. We followed at a reverent distance behind like Israelites trailing the Ark of the Covenant.

When we turned onto our street my son sighed. “It’s kind of like the triumphal entry.” I slid my eyes sideways to look at him. “Well, except that it’s dark and instead of a donkey it’s a tow truck,” he said.

“Isn’t it cool that Dad offered the seller exactly what he needed for his house?” my daughter said.

“How cool is it that the brakes didn’t go out on the highway?” I said.

“And no one got hurt when they ran a red light,” my daughter added. “And that policeman was sitting at the corner.”

“It’s kind of weird that we ran out of momentum in front of that church driveway,” my son said.

“I guess you could call it weird,” I said. “Or a God moment.”

Since I was a gung-ho volunteer back then, I signed up to help out in the Kindergarten classroom one day a week.  It didn’t take me long to observe that my nitpicky care in gathering supplies was thrown to the wind. Pencils, crayons and markers were dumped into community pots and in a few weeks’ time the supplies became a motley assortment of broken pencil nubs, dried out markers with missing caps and opened glue bottles that bled over everything nearby. None of the supplies came home; they couldn’t be separated back to their rightful owners and were in a shape too terrible to return.

In second grade the school added antibacterial wipes to their lengthly list so the students could clean their own desks off every day. I had become somewhat jaded by then and splurged for one container. I figured the school could come up with a better solution – like a custodian.

I wasn’t sure what a fourth grader needed with five different colored highlighters and three sizes of sticky notes. I sent one yellow highlighter and one sticky note pad. There weren’t any negative repercussions and I scored a small victory over THE LIST.

The years progressed like a Chinese calendar with every year being known for a different item only instead of the year of the rat or the dog, we had the year of the $85 graphing calculator, the year of USB memory card on a lanyard and the year of color-coded classes.

“Mom,” my son told me, “I need a blue notebook, blue highlighter, blue folder, blue pen and blue book cover for this class. For this class I need yellow, but they don’t make yellow ink pens…”

I surveyed our supply cabinet. “Here’s black. Your teachers will live,” I told him. And they did.

This past summer I played hardball. I walked brazenly past the half-wall of supply lists at Walmart without picking one up for the school district I live in. I purposely avoided the back-to-school aisles and told my kids I wasn’t buying so much as a packet of paper until I received all of their teachers’ class syllabuses. But I discovered that high school is a whole new animal. Read: light and disposable. Evidently the life of a modern-day high school student is unencumbered.

“Do you need anything for school?” I asked my son. He pulled a mechanical pencil out of his back pocket and wagged it at me.

“What about locker shelves or a stainless steel water bottle?”

He rolled his eyes up and thought a moment. “I could use some hair gel,” he said. “But nothing too smelly.” He started to walk away and stopped, “Oh. And don’t write my name on anything, okay Mom?”

“Right-O. Complete anonymity it is.” I smirked at him.

At 0-dark thirty the following morning I packed my son’s inconspicuous lunch in a plain, brown lunch sack. I followed his wishes not to pack anything too smelly (like a tuna sandwich) or anything that would leave his fingers discolored (like cheesy puffs) or anything that would stick in his teeth (like fruity chews). It was the perfect lunch for a John Doe.  And it made me almost long for the years of color-coding and initials on every crayon.

Just before he left the house I had a wild thought.  I tucked a note into his lunch bag. It was worded just elusively enough so that it would never be cause for public embarrassment if it fell into the wrong hands. My son never said a word about it.

A week later I carried clean laundry into my son’s room and plopped it onto his desk. Something tucked into the corner of his desk blotter caught my eye and I saw it was the note I had put into his lunch bag.

“Dear You,” it read. “Have a great day. Hugs, Mom.”

I smiled. I guess there is one ‘school supply’ you never outgrow.

Has anyone noticed that store receipts are getting longer? Yesterday I purchased toothpaste and mechanical pencil lead and my checkout receipt was 16 inches long. Maybe I should feel privileged that my local drug store is offering a free 8×10 digital photo if I spend $20.00 or savings points to use on more than twenty seven hair care brand names. However, the irony has not been lost on me that stores are using voluminous amounts of ticker tape to send messages promoting responsible recycling and earth-friendly products.

Using the medium of checkout receipts to communicate with the consumer is nothing new. Thanks to National Cash Register’s technology – that enabled stores to print on both sides of the register tape – merchants have been putting advertisements and coupons on the back of their receipts for years.

PCC Natural Markets, a Seattle-based organic grocery store and co-op began using registers just over two years ago that print on both sides of the receipt tape and reportedly cut their grocery chain’s use of receipt paper by up to 35 percent. That amounts to hundreds of miles in receipt tape each year. Chalk one up for communication ingenuity and a great use of resources and available white space. While I may grumble at the price of fresh produce during the winter months I can turn my receipt over and be consoled by the coupon for a $5.99 car wash or a buy-one-get-one-free tanning session.

Large conglomerates have taken communication to the next level by printing additional information on the bottoms of their receipt. Case in point: besides the date, time and items purchased my cashier –Whitney – was happy to serve me; I have the opportunity to win a Caribbean cruise; I’ve been invited to participate in a valuable survey; I am pre-qualified for a credit card; I may call the store manager with questions or comments and my opinion counts. Still, something must be said about waiting longer for a two-foot receipt to wind its way out of the cash register than it does to ring up the handful of items purchased in the first place.

To be fair, not every retailer is bombarding their clientele with lengthy receipts. Digital gas pumps still ask to print receipt at all. A ‘yes’ answer results in a tiny summary of purchase not much bigger than a standard business card; no hype, no gimmicks. Other companies have set a paperless precedent with online billing. With a few computer clicks the customer can remit that same bill online. Not a scrap of paper ever exchanges hands. It would seem that supermarkets, pharmacies and the like would follow suit and phase out physical receipts but that concept is still easier said than done. Aside from the fact that not everyone has access to a computer is the monumental task of devising a way to email a great volume of store receipts securely so as to safeguard the consumers’ personal data. And what of the customer who prefers to pay with cash?

In the not-too-distant past a stray register receipt might have slipped out of someone’s bag and fluttered around the store parking lot like a displaced goose feather. Now a discarded serpentine receipt writhes its way across the asphalt until it reaches a grocery cart and coils around the wheels like a boa constrictor. Considering the dumb luck that at least one out of four shopping carts has wheels that are already dysfunctional, jamming them up with paper just adds insult to injury.

Heaven forbid that same receipt should encounter a rain storm. I once rushed across the parking lot from my vehicle to the grocery store in a downpour and began shaking off my umbrella when a woman tapped me on the shoulder. “Excuse me,” she began awkwardly. “I believe you have toilet paper stuck to the bottom of your shoe.”

“Really?” I craned my head around to look behind me. A first glance it certainly did look like TP on my heel but a closer look revealed a soggy advertisement for a $1 savings on a dozen doughnuts. I took the receipt into the store and held it under the powerful hand drier on the bathroom wall. The doughnuts were delicious.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/retailreport/2004474358_retailreport13.html

http://ideas.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/10/why-paper-receipts-wont-die/

While spring has long been a favorite season to work outside in the yard sprucing up the landscape spring is also the season to “manscape” as hyper-conscious men go to unusual lengths to spruce up their own appearance. No longer do women have the market cornered on primping; the male gender has unabashedly entered the game. 

While wandering the aisles in a well-known department store I did a double take at a gadget that possessed a sort of space-age intrigue. It is called a Mangroomer and is as pretentious as it sounds. It is, in fact, a back razor for men. It features a telescoping handle angled at 135 degrees, for ease of use, and measures nearly two feet in length with a blade at one end to shave even the remotest areas of a man’s vertebral region. At the risk of sounding cliché, it looks so easy to use even a caveman could do it.    

I’ll admit I’ve seen some hairy men in my day but none that I’ve ever mistaken for a caveman. The concept of manscaping is a little over the top. It used to be that all a man needed was a blade to scrape the scruff off his chin and tweezers to yank the nose hairs that fluttered out from his nostrils like party ribbons. The twentieth century ushered in the practice of keeping men’s ear hair whacked to a manageable length as much for muffled hearing as aesthetics. But beyond that men are supposed to be hairy; it’s one of those things that set them apart from women and creepy Sphinx cats. 

One argument for back shaving is the amount of hair that clogs the shower drain. A few bucks and a trip to the hardware store will remedy that problem with a lint filter to place over the drain to catch any stray tresses before they disappear down the pipes. Other men believe that back hair is unsightly to women. It’s a slim argument at best; few women sit around appraising men to the extent that men evaluate the fairer sex. As a side note, any man with a steady job who isn’t tied to his mother by her apron strings is automatically in the running. Add a decent aptitude for conversation and a woman can even fall in love with man whose back could double as a bear skin rug. 

Still, some men are simply self-conscious about their furry shoulder blades. For these men a contraption like the Mangroomer, which retails for around $40, is a bridge to the chasm between beauty and beast. 

For those fastidious gents who can’t shake the notion that less is more, the operative word is stubble. Imagine ten times the stubbly surface area of a man’s face hanging up on a nylon blend shirt or silky sheets. Lying next to a giant sheet of sandpaper in definitely not something the ladies like.

 If an expanse of stubble isn’t deterrence enough then titanic razor burn might be. Shaving the posterior regions is a commitment to lengthy precision. No man wants to risk a hurried graze over the ole’ back only suffer the consequences of red bumps and itchy irritation later on. 

Finally, keep in mind that what one shaves one must keep lubricated. Scaly skin runs a close second to stubble. 

On the quest for a hairless back keep in mind that every grail comes with a price. Choose wisely.

There is a diametrical opposition to the way men and women pack for a trip. Whether they’re preparing for a two-week vacation or a short getaway, the male versus female versions of what will be needed to enjoy the same trip are as similar as the positive versus negative poles on a battery.

A woman plans a different outfit for every day. The possibility also exists that if her itinerary includes sight seeing in the morning and dining on the town at night then she’ll need two outfits in one twenty four hour period. Conversely, her male counterpart will wear the same pair of khakis every day of their week-long vacation. The only quandary he’ll encounter is whether to bring the brown loafers or the black. A man can go from casual to dressy by adding a tie and a sport coat to his khakis and loafers. Tell a woman to dress for dinner and she’ll need a garment bag to keep her “little black dress” from wrinkling and an evening repertoire of undergarments, hosiery and stilettos.

A woman carefully chooses earrings, necklaces, scarves, belts and bags to accessorize her clothing. A man pats himself down to make sure he hasn’t left his wallet, keys and iPhone on the kitchen counter next to his wedding ring.

Even a trip to the pool magnifies the difference between the sexes. A man’s bathing trunks weigh approximately six tenths of a pound and take up no more room than a flattened brown paper lunch sack. A woman packs a one piece and a bikini. The bathing suit she actually wears will depend on how she feels about her body that day.  Additionally she’ll require a bathing suit cover up, a cutesy pair of flip flops, sunglasses, Coppertone, a stylish floppy hat, a book to read and a brightly colored linen bag to carry it all in.

I should take this moment to interject that I am married to a professional traveler. Patrick is an international pilot who has honed the art of packing into something freakishly functional and devoid of all enjoyment. On our honeymoon, I stuffed three Samsonite suitcases to their hinges. My new husband showed up with little more than his shaving kit.

My neighbor’s husband has his own theory about this packing battle between the sexes: a man makes a commitment to wear everything he packs and only what he brings whereas woman wants options. Translated, that means if the only shoes a man has packed are white Nikes, he’s not going to obsess somewhere in the middle of the vacation about black wingtips. A woman wants to entertain the possibility of lounging around the hotel room so into the suitcase go her flannel pants, fuzzy slippers and terry cloth bathrobe. A man can also take an impromptu day to lie around the hotel room because he’s perfectly content wearing Jockey shorts, clutching the television remote.

I used to think this packing phenomenon only existed between adult couples until I had children; both a son and a daughter. In packing for a spring break jaunt my pre-teen daughter came lumbering down the stairs with an oversized suitcase, a pillow, her favorite stuffed animal and a bag containing various electronic games. My son descended the stairs right behind her with his backpack slung over one shoulder.