Recently, my attention was directed to a blender by an alert husband. Because he’s pretty much the only person I’ve talked to this week, except for yelling at the receptionist at my doctor’s office.
Her: “Do you have insurance?”
Me: “DYING! DYING! DYING!” (slumps against wall to make this clear)
Her: “Well, it’s just that what we have on file has expired. Do you want to self-pay?”
Me: (inner monologue) I actually have very fancy insurance. However, husband or husband’s work colluded in such a way that the cards for new job’s insurance have not yet arrived prior to my throat rotting from within. Insurance rep was most unhelpful on the phone, as nature intended. Can I wheedle this frowsy wench into calling them to verify it for me, since I can barely talk?)
Me: “DYING!” (throws checkbook at her head).
This blender, the Blendtec Total Blender, can blend an iPhone. I give them credit for ripping off “Will it float?” from Letterman as “Will it blend?” I also give them credit for blending up a variety of dangerous objects into pure shrapnel pâté. I would buy this product if I ever did anything in the kitchen save rearrange the take out menus. I may buy this product anyway just to blend things. I have a shoe rack I don’t need anymore, but I don’t want to throw it out or summon the mouthbreathers from FreeCycle to my house.
Speaking of mouthbreathers, at the grocery store, I sometimes see really ugly babies. My ybab tends to get many approving looks and comments, for her beauty as well as her poise and charm. “Reeesh?” she might exclaim, magnanimously including the deli counter in a sweeping hand gesture. The market employees know her and come out to see her, summoning others from the back. “SHE’S here!”
Another baby might be waiting in line too, but that other baby is so ugly that he is not even offered free stuff. I look at the other mother, and I think “Wow, that’s what you go home to, lady?” I would pity her, except that emotion demeans us all. Clearly, that other baby is an inferior specimen in many ways even apart from its decided unattractiveness: lolling, drooling, not even making an attempt to communicate or observe its environment. I think of the clever lies we must all tell ourselves, convincing ourselves to get out of bed each morning, no matter how lackluster our lives may be. “But tonight, I will watch that show I like! I may even fast forward the commercials. Except I like that one with the guy who does that thing.” Or perhaps we look forward to using a certain glitter bodywash. I can’t really say. I don’t have these problems. Aside from a little hoof and mouth disease, my life is a dream, something so marvelous it used to be reserved only for people like Pat Sajak.
