smockmomma: October 2006 Archives

what's up with men and their insane need for instant gratification in ALL things? smockdaddy refuses to shop online or by catalogue because it "takes too long" to get the stuff. on the other hand, i adore shopping online or by catalogue cuz it's like christmas when it finally arrives. not to mention the fact that delayed gratification is the cornerstone of my avon business!

it seems like this whole instant vs. delayed with men and women is pretty true for all arenas. i can't think of one situation in which men prefer to wait. hmm. food for thought.

but i'm really bummed that reese and ryan are splitting up. if not for the fact that i really like reese (adorable, anyone?) i prolly wouldn't care less and i'd be chalking it up to yet another hollywood marriage going down in flames. but this one stings. heavy sigh.

now how's this for a kick? sheriff clint low (of mason county in TEXASisthebest) is running a pink prison. and, while mamaT or i may think it's awfully grand to slide in under some pretty pink sheets, apparently some good ol' boys do not.

according to low, he's been pinking up his prison to keep the population down. he says that the inmates did't care for the bubblegum shoes and jumpsuits, so he made the towels and linens pink as well. eventually, he painted the walls pink for good measure.

"most Texas males have an aversion to wearing pink, so obviously already they don't want to come back," he says, adding that he knows "for a fact it's helping." low says that in 2004, before his jail went pink, about a third of all arrests were repeat offenders. but the next year, almost nobody was coming back. same thing so far this year.

some retailers are learning that premature holiday spirit can put customers in total grinch mode. regular readers know that mamaT posts annual rants about bigbox retailers "decking their halls" with Christmas decorations by mid-October. good news for mamaT; finally, some smaller dealers have caught on to the fact that ridiculously early decor brings holiday jeers. read more about the turning trend here.

props to TS at video meliora

i’m ashamed to admit it, but several weeks ago i was talking to a girlfriend and we were commiserating about how truly undervalued homemakers are in our society. that’s not what i’m ashamed to admit, that’s coming up soon. the conversation started out innocently enough and we kept on track for quite some time. innocent enough. but then, you see, before too long we slid face-first into the inevitable kvetching about how truly undervalued we homemakers are in our own homes. i don’t know what it is about these gripe sessions about societal ills that always brings us (maybe not all housewives, but at least many in my small circle of marrieds) around to griping about our not-so-insignificant others.

i have on several occasions made a promise to myself not to badmouth my spouse to other people. i find this a very noble quality in the few wives i’ve seen demonstrating it…like mamaT. i think mamaT would rather stick needles in her eyeballs than say anything negative about papaC.

as i was telling you, i have on several occasions made a promise to myself not to badmouth my spouse to other people. by “other people” i mean not to anyone but him. but, it turns out i’m like the smoker who quits over and over again – which means i never really quit, doesn’t it? or maybe i’m like the alcoholic who insists on joining my friends at a bar, thinking i can just hang out without actually participating in the (pity) party. regardless, i hate when the kvetching is over because i always end up feeling so disloyal and spent. it just isn’t worth it. so, how is it that these types of sessions always seem to lead to a bitchfest about how our spouses just don’t give us enough props?

i’m sure there are very profound psychological and emotional reasons for this, but basically i think it boils down to pride and pity, or both. whatever the reason, finally i realized the other day just how pathetic it all sounded. i realized that i was complaining about the very traits in the sexy smockdaddy that attracted me to him in the first place. the scary part is that my reprimand came to me with mamaT’s voice. so, when exactly did that supreme self-confidence of his turn into insufferable arrogance? yeah, um, well . . .

anyway, another friend of mine called friday hoping to settle into a nice gripe session about her husband. i cringed when it hit me that she actually felt comfortable expecting to be able to share her bile with me. so, like the alcoholic on her way back on the wagon, i admitted to her that i couldn’t saddle up to that bar with her and suggested we focus on how sexy and wonderful our men are. it felt good. i just hope it lasts.