I think my mom’s favorite thing about staying with me, beyond the money saved or the quality time with boring ol’ me, is that she can bring Little Tony and Peach. I love to see them, and so does my dog, Pip, but three toy-sized dogs in a toy-sized apartment create a surprising amount of dirt.
Think Dust Bowl with dog hair.
There was a time when my mom and I had five dogs and a cat, so we are old pros at pet-hair management. At home, we have L.L. Bean furniture liners that must cover the sofa and armchair anytime we are not sitting on them, or company isn’t over. When I was still living at home, if I so much as got up to go to the bathroom, my mom would nag me about forgetting to cover the couch.
In my apartment, I have a ratty blanket for the same purpose. I thought my mom would be proud. But instead, she ignored it.
“Mom,” I said, replacing the blanket for the second time that day. “You have to make sure the blanket is covering the couch cushions, especially after the dogs come in from a walk.”
“They’re not that dirty.”
“Yes, they are.”
My mom rolled her eyes at me and complied.
Now was that so hard?
Another night, we were about to head out to see a movie. I was waiting by the door while my mom gathered her things.
“Okay, ready,” she said.
“You left the kitchen light on.”
“I know. I left it on for the dogs.”
What, do they have a lot of reading to do?
“It’s wasteful,” I said.
With an exaggerated sigh, my mom trudged back to the kitchen and turned off the light.
“What’s with the attitude?” I asked. But I could hear her voice saying it, even as the words left my mouth.
Scary.
When I was younger, another of my daily chores was setting the table. There was a right way to do it, and that was to clear the table, wipe the table down with a damp sponge, and set it with a full set of silverware—fork, knife, and spoon, no matter what my mom was serving for dinner.
On my mom’s last visit, I convinced her to take a night off of restaurants or takeout and let me make dinner. I wanted to show her that I can take care of myself, because like any good Italian mother, she never thinks I’m eating well or enough. Since I cooked, she set the table.
I brought over the salad bowl and saw big paper towels by each plate.
“I have napkins,” I said.
“Eh, I didn’t know where they were. This was easier,” she replied.
Paper towels were always a forbidden shortcut in our house, but I bit my tongue. My bewilderment increased when I lifted the towel and saw only a fork and a knife beneath it.
“I’m gonna have a Diet Coke,” my mom said. “Do you want one?”
“Sure, and while you’re up, can you grab us two spoons?”
“We don’t need them.”
“It’s good to have them, just in case.”
“In case of what?”
“In case my mom comes over!”
And we both laughed.
Uncle Sam
By Lisa
Thank God for our government, which just sued a yogurt company.
Whew.
Don’t worry, America, they’re on it.
You may think that we have bigger problems for government to fix, but you’d be wrong.
Silly wabbit. Government can’t fix anything.
A yogurt company may sound harmless, as compared with thieving banks and Charlie Sheen, but appearances can be deceiving.
Luckily, we don’t have to watch out for ourselves, thanks to Uncle Sam. He’s a good uncle, even though he never gives us a dollar at Christmas, like my Uncle Ed used to. I loved Uncle Ed, but Uncle Sam is from the Other Side of the Family.
Every family has an Other Side.
It’s either Your Mother’s Side or Your Father’s Side, but we all know what we mean when we say the Other Side.
Them.
Not us.
Uncle Sam sued the yogurt company for claiming that Activia yogurt would make people more regular, if they ate it once a day. The government said that the company was exaggerating with its ads, because people would probably have to eat Activia three times a day to be more regular.
Thanks, government. Because who would ever guess that ads exaggerate anything?
Hmm.
For example, I believed an ad for a lipstick that said it would get me a man.
But it didn’t.
And I believed an ad for sneakers that would make me thinner, but they didn’t. And my face soap didn’t make me younger, and my car didn’t change my life. Obviously, I was cheated, and Uncle Sam needs to step in. I want ads for things we can trust.
Like politicians.
As for Activia, let’s get real.
Have you ever tasted Activia? I have, and I love it. It’s delicious. A creamy vanilla flavor, light and perfect. It’s so good, it’s criminal. In fact, maybe that yogurt company got off easy, only being sued.
They should go to jail.
I never endorse products, and this still isn’t a product endorsement, because honestly, you shouldn’t buy Activia. You know why? Because if you do, you’ll never stop eating it. You’ll be so regular, you won’t ever leave the house.
If you follow.
Come to think of it, now that our government has established that you need three Activia a day to be regular, it should move quickly to find out what happens if you eat fifty-seven a day.
Because I could.
But it’s not my fault. It’s the yogurt company’s fault. Because it puts Activia in little containers, which makes me eat more than one.
Hell, they practically stick that spoon in my hand.
And if that weren’t bad enough, the company sells Activia in packs of six, all stuck together. It simply resists being pulled apart. In one sitting, I could eat six, no problem. Activia is a six-pack for girls.
If this keeps up, I’ll have an Activia belly.
Finally, I appreciate that Uncle Sam is so concerned about my health and welfare, especially my bowel movements.
Thanks, Unc!
Some people dislike governmental intrusion, but not me. Privacy is overrated. I don’t value it at all, as you know if you read this column.
I’m happy my government’s up my butt.
And the best part is that the yogurt company had to settle the lawsuit, paying the government some $21 million, which I’m sure will be put to excellent use. Uncle Sam may not give us money at Christmas, but with luck we’ll get a really nice screwdriver.
So we’re screwed.
I think that $21 million will go far toward paying off the federal deficit, which is now at $13 trillion. After all, you have to start somewhere.
There are a lot of drops in a bucket.
Mathlete
By Lisa
I was never good at math, but I figured it didn’t matter. Unfortunately, it does, at least when you make cranberry sauce.
And it’s more than just math, it’s science, too. I figured I’d never need to know anything about volume, but I do. Again, I was wrong, when it comes to cranberry sauce.
Cranberry sauce is high-maintenance, for a condiment.
We begin with what happens to me every holiday meal, when cranberry sauce demands to be made. For some reason, I never end up with the 12-ounce bag of Ocean Spray cranberries that dummyproofs the entire process. It has the recipe right on it, and all you have to do is follow it, dump the cranberries and sugar into the boiling water, and you’re good to go.
Plus I get extra credit for making my own cranberry sauce from scratch, and not just opening the can and making it look homemade by chopping it up with a fork.
That’s beneath me.
Sort of.
Obviously, I’m not a high-rent kind of cook. I own fancy cookbooks, but the recipe on the Ocean Spray bag is as reliably awesome as the one for chocolate chip cookies on the Hershey’s bag. If these companies ever c
hange their wrapping, I can’t cook.
But anyway, the store is always out of the Ocean Spray bag by the time I get there, so I have to buy whatever overpriced organic cranberries are on hand, and unfortunately, they’re always too pretentious to have a recipe on the package.
And this time, I ended up with a plastic container of artisanal cranberries whose label said that it contained one dry quart of cranberries.
Huh?
I don’t know what a quart of cranberries is. A quart of milk, I’m familiar. But cranberries?
I have a vague understanding that there’s some kind of difference between dry measures and liquid measures, but I never understood what the difference was. For this reason, I own a bewildering array of Pyrex measuring cups, but I have no idea if they measure dry stuff or wet stuff, or if that matters.
That would be the science part.
So I thumb through my fancy cookbooks on Thanksgiving Day to find a cranberry-sauce recipe, but they’re too full of themselves to help me out with such a basic recipe, and even The Joy of Cooking doesn’t have one.
Now I know I’m in trouble.
If it’s not in The Joy of Cooking, my cooking is joyless.
I’m fresh out of joy.
So I go online to try and find a cranberry sauce recipe, and every single recipe tells you to use 12 ounces of cranberries. Because everybody but me has that Ocean Spray bag.
Ocean Spray intends world domination.
In fact, Ocean Spray is the Microsoft of cranberry companies.
Of course, the Ocean Spray recipe is on its website, and it specifies 12 ounces of cranberries. But I have no idea how many ounces are in one dry quart, or the other way around. I know it sounds dumb, but I don’t even know which is bigger. Or heavier. Or wetter. Or dryer.
You see the problem.
So I type the following question into Google: “How many ounces are in one dry quart?” And a bunch of links pops up, so I click on the first, from wiki answers, and it reads:
32.
Blink. Blink blink.
I don’t even know what that means, as far as the recipe goes. Hoping to get a clue, I click on the next link, which purports to answer the same exact question. And its answer, also from wiki answers, is:
5.
Uh oh.
Now I officially don’t understand. There are either 5 or 32 ounces in one dry quart.
And the only person dumber than me is this wiki dude.
So now I’m starting to panic, and I go from one link to the next, eventually falling into a wormhole of conversion tables, where I encounter words like drams and deciliters, and I learn that one firkin is equal to 34.069 liters.
I had no idea. I should have listened in firkin class.
And do you know how many liters are in a hogshead?
If you said 238.48, you win a can of cranberry sauce.
Which is what I’m buying, as soon as I get my coat on.
Oprah and Einstein
By Lisa
Oprah is the genius who coined the term “aha moment,” wherein you realize something about yourself, usually something that makes you feel smarter.
Me, I remember an aha moment that made me feel dumber.
It happened a while ago, at the time of the awful oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, and I was on an airplane in front of two men who spent the entire three hours trying to figure out a way to stop the spill.
And then, that’s when I thought, aha!
I’m not smart enough to fix an oil spill.
But before we go further, let me be clear:
I was sad about the oil spill, and I knew it wasn’t a laughing matter. I used to read everything I could on the subject, because I cared.
All I’m saying is that I had no idea how to stop it. I don’t know how to plug a hole in the Earth. I can barely work my BlackBerry.
I admired these men, who had so many ideas. That’s the kind of can-do attitude that makes America great.
Only problem is, I figured out then, I can’t do.
Rather, I can do lots of things, but I know, as sure as shootin’, I can’t do that.
Consider the men behind me, on the plane. They weren’t engineers or anything, and they weren’t friends before the flight. I know this because I heard the whole conversation, from takeoff to landing. I always eavesdrop, especially when I fly. In fact, nobody’s secrets are safe from me, anywhere. I’m nosy. I listen when it looks like I’m reading. If you see me in a restaurant and you think I didn’t hear your conversation, you’re wrong.
And if you ask me if I overheard and I say no, I’m lying.
The men on the plane struck up a conversation that started with how-about-that-oil-spill and turned into a brainstorming session about plugs, cantilevers, sleeves, gloves, and valves.
My head was spinning.
These were normal guys. I won’t tell you what they do for a living, even though I know, in case they read this. Also, it’s against my rules. Even though I listen to your secrets, I don’t repeat them.
I keep secrets secret.
Anyway, not only did these guys try to solve the oil spill, they were fascinated by their own conversation. I know this because at the end of the flight, they exchanged business cards, which is something men do when they like each other.
Bottom line, I was happy for them, but I’m not like them.
If I think about the things I can talk about for three hours and be fascinated, there are many. Kids, family, friends, dogs, cats, food, ponies, carbohydrates, and food.
Did I say food?
Food.
But not levers. Ever.
I mean, some awful company punched a hole in the Earth and now it’s leaking. How do you repair a planet?
I don’t know.
Why not?
I’m no Einstein.
Or Oprah.
Most of the time, the only thing floating around in my head are jingles from TV commercials. I never forget a jingle. I even remember, “See the USA in your Chevrolet.” And, “My baloney has a first name.” Plus I would still like to buy the world a Coke and keep it company.
There are current jingles stuck in my head, too. The Kindle song about “I love you” and “You stole my heart” and “1, 2, 3,” runs on a loop in my brain, probably in the jingle lobe. In another mood, I can sing the Subway “Five, five dollar, five dollar foot long” song. I sing it all the time, wiping my kitchen counter, washing my hair, unloading the dishwasher.
I even know what number to call for Empire Flooring.
I bet you do, too.
So here’s what I’m thinking:
You know who’s smart enough to plug the hole in the ocean? The people who write jingles.
That would be my only idea to fix the oil spill.
Call Empire Flooring.
I bet they cover it with a nice carpet.
Aha!
Toys in the Attic
By Lisa
I just read about the people who found a vase in their attic, which was sold to Chinese buyers for $86 million.
How does this happen, and why is my attic so inferior?
I don’t understand stories like that. They make me totally crazy. It happens all the time. People find stuff in their attic that turns out to be worth a fortune. Like a map that has a Rembrandt underneath. Or a calendar that covers the last copy of the Declaration of Independence.
Who are these people? Where do they live? And how do they get the best attics ever?
Here’s what’s in my attic: Old books, but not so old as to be worth money. Old clothes, but not so old to be worth money. Old chairs, but not so old to be worth money. In fact, I’m older than anything in my attic, and even I’m not worth that much money.
Evidently, only inanimate objects acquire value as they get older. People just get called seniors.
Curse you, other people’s attics! Also the social security system, ageism, and society in general!
See how I get, from these attic stories?
I have an idea. Maybe if we take the seniors and put them in the attic, they’ll be worth something when they come out.
Let’s find out.
Try this at home. Go, quick! Hustle Mom and Dad upstairs, right now. Push their sorry asses into the attic. Slam the door, lock it, and set the timer for 300 years. Then take them out and sell them.
Too dark?
Let’s go back to the aforementioned vase. I looked at a photo of it online. It’s cute, as vases go, and if I’d found it in my lame and inferior attic, I wouldn’t have thought it was anything special. It’s blue, yellow, and green, and has two fish on the side.
That’s 42 mil a fish.
My guess is they’re goldfish.
Of real gold.
The vase in the attic was from the eighteenth century, and to be precise, the Qianlong Dynasty.
Who knew? If I’d looked at that vase, I would have said Ming. Definitely, Ming. As in Ming a Ding Ding, which was the favorite dynasty of Frank Sinatra.
But it was Qianlong, which I’d never heard of. I only know Qianshort.
Still, I shouldn’t feel bad about not identifying the vase correctly. After all, the people who found the vase in their amazing attic took it to an auction house, where they were told by the experts that it was worth $2 million.
Chump change.
But later, in an auction that lasted half an hour, the bidding went up to $70 million. That’s over 2 million bucks a minute.
Time really is money.
By the way, if you’re wondering how the number got from $70 million to the final $86 million, the difference was the commission that went to the auction house and the tax on the commission.
That’s a good commission, no? I can’t divide that fast, but it sounds like 393,838 percent. Which I suppose is reasonable, for underestimating the value of the vase by $84 million.
You get what you pay for.
Reportedly, the auctioneer was surprised at the final selling price.
Ya think?
He said that there had been indications that the buyers, who were from China, had lots of money to spend, but “nothing like this.”
Best Friends, Occasional Enemies Page 14
