Coffee Kvetch

Will someone please explain to me why the number of cups etched on the side of the coffee maker carafe never, ever correspond to the number of cups you actually get?

When I make coffee, I fill the carafe up to the line indicating four cups. Now I know it's highly unlikely I'll ever drink four cups of coffee in the morning, even if it's decaf, but I know that in Coffee Maker Land, four cups really means one and a half cups. So this means making coffee requires doing a little math. Not something I do well when I'm awake, let alone half asleep.

Maybe it has something to do with the metric system, or maybe the designers at Cuisinart have really small bladders. I just want to understand why they think most people drink coffee from a thimble.

Toss The Baby Shower Out With The Bathwater - Part 2

Baby showers have always been a real mystery to me. For the most part, any kind of shower is a very heterosexual event filled with traditions and rituals that are nowhere to be found in the Lesbian Handbook. And the shower I attended last Sunday was no exception.

I knew I wasn't in Kansas anymore when I got out of my car and walked up to the house. All the straight girls were wearing dresses, heels and make up. I was in typical Sunday attire: capri jeans and a t-shirt. What's up with getting all dolled up for a baby shower, anyhow?

But I knew I was truly in a foreign land when the games began. There was the clothespin game and the guess how big around the pregnant woman is game. And then there was a game where labels were removed from several jars of baby food and you had to guess what type of food was in each jar. Some were orange, others were a sort of yellow, and then there were a few jars in varying shades of green.

I picked up one of the green ones and said, "Oh yeah, I remember my little brother projectile vomiting this one. I think it's either spinach or green beans." No one paid attention to me after that.

Toss The Baby Shower Out With The Bathwater - Part 1

Have you ever been to a Babies 'R Us store? It's a cavernous place, sort of like a Costco with an inventory made up entirely of tiny pastel colored items. And then there's the totally robotic staff who accosted me the moment I stepped through the doors and immediately led me to a seat in front of an enormous desk in the shape of a half circle (a uterus, perhaps?). There I was greeted by a Stepford Shopping Assistant who insisted I needed a tour of the store.

I was looking for a shower gift and all I wanted was the list of gifts on my friend Laura's daughter's registry, but Miss Perky Promoter of Procreation wanted me to know everything about every teeny, tiny package of cuteness they sold. I just kept repeating my mantra of "no thanks, I just want the list."

Finally, once she'd figured out how to send the document from her computer to the printer, I was given a thick stack of pale yellow paper. Quickly scanning the first couple of pages, I pointed to something that didn't require a translation and said, "please show me where I can find this."

Meanwhile, the store was filling with mommies holding screaming infants and whining toddlers. I grabbed the gift from the shelf (a rather adorable snuggly), listened to the chirpy pre-programmed shpiel from the checkout robot, and ran for the parking lot.

Nine years ago when my GYN doc told me I needed a hysterectomy, I understood it would be very painful at the time, but once I was healed I'd be provided with unlimited rewards. Now I know exactly what she meant.

ESL For Spammers

As a sanderson
By tudor do marjoram
Go aurora on sanicle
Or by subsitent
Go cartwheel he atone
Go shattuck by uppercut

Nope, this is not remedial haiku or some sort of interplanetary greeting. These are actual examples of message headers I found in my inbox this morning from spammers. What are these people trying to tell me?

Should I record them, play them backwards and figure out if Paul is dead?

Okay spammers, it's time to learn English if you want to get anywhere in the land of sleazy email scams. Maybe I should offer an online course in ESL for these poor fools. I mean, if they want to get the coveted 2% repsonse, at least their message headers should make sense.

And to boost enrollment I could throw in a Rolex or a few Cialis tablets as an incentive.