Punctuation matters and Bathroom manners

Good evening!

Warning to all you boys out there who read this blog:  This one is quite girlie. 

You've been warned!



There are times in a woman's life when she celebrates the arrival of her punctuation.

The first time she has it.

When she thinks she's pregnant....and doesn't want to be....and gets it.

Right after that baby is born...and you NEVER want to be pregnant again.  (Until the next time you want to get pregnant.)

When she's in a pre-punctuation nightmare and the only thing that will relieve the cramps, bloating, and other attractive symptoms they include in the Midol commercials is a a big old jar of "BRING IT ON."

I've been having regular punctuation sessions since I was 13 and I can tell you I honestly believe these are the only times a woman celebrates the arrival of her five day trek into punctuation.

And, should these things happen in a public place, say, in a mall, museum, school, or office restroom...the celebration is toned down a bit to possibly a quiet, "Whoo hooo..." whispered heavenward.

I also believe...and this is just me talking here...that a woman's punctuation is a fairly private thing.  You don't announce it to a room full of strangers, you dispose of the products in a modest manner, and you wear black pants for the duration.  That's how I'd write it, if I were writing a rulebook for women.

Noelle C, I found out recently, has no such rule book.

The other day, as I was sitting at my desk minding my own business, Noelle C does the potty dance across the office to the restroom.  This is nonsense.  She's 56 and she wouldn't have to do the potty dance if she'd stop announcing to the office how she NEVER USES THE BATHROOM UNLESS IT'S AN EMERGENCY. 

Well on that day it must have been.  And, once behind closed doors, she clearly felt the need to make this announcement:

"I CANNOT BELIEVE IT!  YOU MUST BE KIDDING ME!"

Not the cleanest bathrooms...just the most private.

There are few places a loud announcement garners complete attention...but from a restroom to an outer office would be one of those places.  Lumbergh, PM, and sat there, next to my desk, waiting for her to emerge and reveal what was so amazing in the ladies room.  I've been in there.  It's not that great.  Certainly not worthy of an exclamation loud enough to break through the hum of the fan  (which covers NOTHING, which is why I have to take my lunchtime constitutional at the Pick and Save most days)  and through the door.

She emerged, looking shocked, and a little giddy.  "I'm fifty six years old...I haven't had my punctuation in twelve years.  And I got it today."

Poor Pm...poor Lumbergh...they just couldn't leave the room fast enough.

But leave they did.  Which left me to have the following conversation:

Me  "Oh?"

Noelle C  "Yep.  Got my punctuation.  Shocked me to pieces."

ME  (I wanted to say, "yes, we all heard.")  "I imagine."

Noelle C  "I haven't had my punctuation in twelve years.  I haven't had sex in more than twenty."

What's more annoying than
this?  Anything Noelle C
has to say immediately
after she's been in here.

ME;  "ummmm, okay then."  (How did we start on THIS PATH?)

Noelle C:  "And I got it today.  Very icky.  Not as icky as the time I had to give CPR to a corpse.  First thing I had to do was clean up the icky. All I had was my shirt so you know what you have to do..."

ME  (the last time she told this story she yanked up her shirt and I got to see her foundation garments.  I wasn't up for that.  I picked up the phone and dialed random numbers until it started ringing.)  "Good afternoon...this is Sarah from Stuff Installed...."

Five for Friday: Things Noelle C did to make Valentine's Day even MORE uncomfortable!

Good morning!

I realize it's Saturday, but if you're like me, Friday goes by in a blur, because it's the very best day of the week.  I'm as far away from my next Noelle C encounter as I'm going to be at any point in the week on Friday morning.

So Thursday was Valentine's Day and most people I know don't have a big feeling about it one way or another, especially when it lands on a week day.  Maybe we exchange cards, or, maybe, like in my house, we make a big deal about ignoring it, and then get each other "Ground hog's day" gifts.  (Actually, the anniversary of my first date with hubby in on the 27th.  It's our 27th February 27th as a couple.  So that's really our big romantic day, and we'll be spending it this year service baked potatoes at the Lenten Dinner at our church.)

Personally, I think Valentine's Day is stupid.  If you're in a relationship, and you need a specific day to have to buy your honey something nice like flowers or candy or a bottle a Jameson's Irish Whisky, then maybe you're in trouble in the love department.  And if you aren't in a relationship, Valentine's Day is just a big old day to make you feel worse about yourself.  Bonus, if you're a guy and you don't get your woman something sparkly and expensive on Valentine's Day, well, according to the TV advertisers, you're just not a man.

As always, however, Noelle C managed to make this day, which is already weird and uncomfortable for most people, even weirder and more uncomfortable for those of us who have to work with her.  And here are the top fives ways she managed that.

5)  The grandest of grand entrances.

Every single work day of her life, Noelle C enters the office jingling her keys and singing "good morning good morning"  like some sort of twisted Disney fairy sprinkling magic dust on everyone.  It's especially annoying to me because for 99% of her entrance I'm four feet or less away from her and I almost always on the phone with a customer.  Which means at 10:54 four mornings a week, while we're four hours into our work day already, Little Miss Sunshine bounds in making all sorts of racket. 

Valentine's Day she ramped it up.  Big time. 

She flung wide the door, which means all the cold air from outside washed in behind her and settled over my desk in reception for the next three hours.  She jingled her keys with one hand and with the other she held up a plastic bin of those horrible gummy chewy cinnamon hearts.  This was a HUGE bin of these things.  It truly is my least favorite candy of all.

She then did this odd little dance where she marched like she was presenting Simba to the African safari, and skipped like an 8 year girl at a May pole dance.  This she did until she crossed the showroom and leaned over my desk where she jingled her keys IN MY FACE and shouted in a high pitched voice "HAPPY HAPPY HAPPY HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!"

I was on the phone.  With a customer.  Who was telling me some very technical details of a problem relating to the thing we installed in his home. 

4)  Just take a crow bar to the boss's personal life. He won't mind.

After harassing me, she did her weird dance right into Lumbergh's office.  She stopped with the keys, and sang her "Happy Valentines' Day" song (Think  "Ren and Stimpy's 'Happy Happy JOY Joy' song  but without the attention to musical excellence) at the top of her lungs.  (Again, I'm on the phone.  He's on the phone.)  Then she stood there and waited for him to get off the phone.  When he made the mistake of doing so, she said, "HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY, IT's A DAY OF LOVE!  DO YOU HAVE ANY ROOOOOOOMAAAAAAAANTIC PLANS TONIGHT?"

This, all said in what I can only think was her attempt at a flirtatious voice.

I felt like gagging.  I know what Lumbergh was doing for Valentine's Day. He and the wife (yes, he has a wife.  She is lovely.  Noelle C has met her.) were going to one of their kids' volleyball games.

I don't know what he said, but I could hear him squirming in his chair because she also has no sense of personal space.

3) A door is no barrier to what she has to say

So for the last three days, Noelle C has been telling everyone, EVERYONE in the office to be on the lookout for a customer who was going to come in and buy something for us to install.  If he did come in and buy something, she was going to get a commission.  Her quest for commissions might be the most annoying thing yet, but that's another blog for another day.

She's asked if he's coming to the office every hour for the last three days.  So when he finally showed up in the showroom at about noon, she did what anyone would do in that case:  She dove behind her desk and refused to talk to him.  (See, in order for her to get the commission, she actually has to talk to him in person. So by NOT talking to him, she can blame whomever does talk to him when the thing doesn't get purchased.)

So Lumbergh went to speak with this customer.  Now the guy was not what you'd call a chatty person.  And he spent nearly half an hour staring at our displays, saying nothing.  When there's someone in the showroom, my day comes to a stop because I either have to talk to that person, which is fine, or I have to sit and work quietly without making or taking phone calls.  (Given that I'm the customer service person and 99% of the phone calls I take are unpleasant, I can't be doing that in front of new potential customers.)  So I'm sitting there, pretending to write our thank you notes to customers, while Lumbergh is standing there waiting for this guy to talk. And what's Noelle C doing?  What she always does.  She's talking to herself.

Loudly.

I had to check because at this point she was talking so loudly I thought she was actually on the phone.  Nope, she was just saying random things to make herself look good.  Things like, "well, I already booked an appointment with so I can just move on to the next person.  And oh, I booked that one too.  Well, what am I going to do?  I booked two appointments and it's not even noon."

This went on for several minutes, annoying me, and annoying Lumbergh to the point where he closed her door, so as not to disturb the corpse of a customer we had standing in the showroom. 

That didn't stop her. oh no.  She just got LOUDER so we could hear her through the door.

2) EAT THE CANDY!  EAT IT!

By three PM no one had eaten any of that vile chewy candy.  I don't like them.  Lumbergh doesn't eat candy.  And PM doesn't like non-chocolate gummy sort of candy.  And since we are the only other people in the office when she's there  (The sales guys rarely come in and the installers are gone by 7:30 every morning.) no one had eaten this rare treat from hell. 

As she was announcing that she was going to lunch in the conference room  (Another daily announcement)  she stopped and noticed that the candy hadn't been touched.

But she was.  So she picked up the candy and started shouting this.

I BROUGHT THIS CANDY IN AND SET IT NEXT TO THIS HORRIBLE BOX OF STALE DONUTS!  AND NO ONE HAS EATEN IT.  (PM brought in donuts for Fat Tuesday on Tuesday...it was a lovely gesture and they were very good donuts. Noelle C, of course, didn't eat any because she's given up sugar forever.)

SOMEONE EAT THIS CANDY OR I WILL KNOW YOU DON'T LOVE ME AND I WILL QUIT.

This was my MOMENT!

And I was weak.  She waved that horrible tub of hearts under my nose and I took one, but into it, and then held it in my mouth away from my taste buds.  Lumbergh watched this with amusement, and whispered, "Just spit it out."

Oh, great.  Suddenly I'm nine at we're at my grandmother's and she's made us all taste some weird German dish that tastes like lye and rotten eggs and Lumbergh's my mother telling me it's okay to spit it in a napkin.  This is exactly how all office people behave, right?

Well, Noelle C offered the candy to Lumbergh who said, "I don't eat candy, you know that."  So she went to PM and repeated that if he didn't eat it, she'd know he didn't love her.  PM is a good guy.  He took two.  And then he sent a text to Lumbergh  "eat the candy you coward."

Lumbergh took a piece and pretended to eat it.  This made Noelle C's heart almost explode with joy.

And I got to spit something into a garbage can.

1)  PET YOUR COWORKER

This wasn't a great week for me.  It just wasn't.  A lot of things went sideways and wrong and I had to deal with it.  But when a guy called to complain that something we installed was malfunctioning because it made his water too bouncy.  (It's a blog for another day, but I'm not making that complaint up.  The thing we installed in his tub made his water too bouncy and he was now getting water on the floor.)

After spending quality time trying to explain to this Mensa member that he probably just needed to close his shower curtain, I hung up and put my head on my desk.  "This week is giving me more gray hairs." 

Noelle C, who can't hear anything managed to hear that.  She came over to my desk, and started picking at my hair...like a monkey picking bugs out of another monkey's hair.  Then she started to pet my head.

And you wonder why I have three bottles of wine, in my fridge, ready to go the minute I get home from work.

So hey, happy Valentine's Day weekend all.  I'm going to go get some discounted candy.

So, this is what I'm doing with my life now.

Good evening!

do you ever sit back and wonder about what got you to the point in your life where you are right now?  Working for a company that works with plumbing, we get into some really mucky situations a lot.  I know PM, who has a degree in music, sat back recently as foul water and various gunky matter spewed out of a shower drain and onto his shoes, and said, "So, this is what I'm doing with my life now."

Well, that happened to me today.  To understand this conversation fully, all you need to know is that every time Noelle C and I contact a customer, or have contact with a customer we have to make a reminder note in the computer database so that everyone who reads that customer's file will know how often we contacted that customer and what the result of each contact was.

Now you know everything about my job.  anyone want it?

Anyway, today Noelle C decided that my day wasn't stupid enough.  I'd spent the morning fighting with my horribly outdated and woefully under powered computer.  I only ask him, and yes my computer is a boy, to do two things a day and today he decided he wasn't going to do either.  So after fighting with him for two hours, I then called the company IT department.  Normally a call to IT fixes the computer in ten minutes or less. 

Not today.  Today I spent nearly 90 minutes on the phone, during which time the IT guy pointed out several times that I needed a new computer  (it took me two years to get a new copier for the office, and that was something that everyone used.  A new computer will probably show up the day I purchase it.)  and also during which time Noelle C decided to announce to the entire office how SHE HAD TO COVER FOR ME NOW THAT I WAS ON THE PHONE WITH IT.

I wasn't shopping on Ebay.  I was trying to get my stupid computer to work.

Anyway, after spending the bulk of my day trying to get things to WORK at my work station, I then had to play catch up on my customer calls...see, even though Noelle C told everyone she was covering for me and doing my job for me, the reality is, as it always is, that I'm expected to do my job, and her job, and no one is going to do much about it.  She's far too busy these days deciding if she's still in love with her beloved Lumbergh or if the NEW GUY is really the one she loves.  Thats' a topic for another blog.

ANYWAY, by the time it was time for my lunch, something else Noelle C likes to announce to the entire office.  See, I go to lunch at 1:30 or when I finish what I know I absolutely must get done before I go to lunch.  after working with her for nearly a year, this nit wit still doesn't get that.  She still feels the need to call me (and what is more annoying when you spend your entire day on the phone than getting a phone call from someone who sits ten feet away from you?)  and ask, "are you going to take a lunch today?" 

ANYWAY, so I'm finishing up my pre lunch stuff, and I've taken a call from her about lunch and I'm headed to the back office where I hide from her while I eat my Lean Cuisine.  She stops me, "I just have one question."

GRRRRRRRR

It's a stupid question asked by a woman who likes to play stupid.  she asks these questions for one of two reasons:  she either wants to try and get me in trouble or she wants show her beloved Lumbergh that she's really very careful and detail orientated. 

I answer her stupid question quickly and flee to the back office.  My head hurts because my physical symptoms from my car accident in July are back, the headache, the dizzy spells, that sort of thing.  Yes, I have to go back to the spine care clinic.  Again, that's for another day.  My feet and hands are nearly numb because I'm forced to work in an office that is poorly insulated with  man who judges how warm the building is by how warm his all glass office is on a sunny day.  He sits in a greenhouse and turns down the heat.  Meanwhile, I'm sitting nine feet away from him in the outer office, wearing four shirts, two pairs of socks and my snow boots.  Today I was freezing.  Freezing.      I spent my 56 minutes sitting in the back office which is even colder than mine, but PM is back there most of time as are the install guys, who are all good guys.  Good company tends to warm me.

After lunch I get the mail.  Every day.  I put on my coat and walk to the mail box and get the mail.  Every day for almost a year.  and every day for almost a year, it takes Noelle C by surprise, even though I tell her I'm getting the mail.  "Oh, did you take a walk after you spent an hour at lunch?"

Again, she is the master at playing dumb to get other people in trouble.

But the number one thing she does that annoys me is this:  she  simply MUST ask me a question the minute I step within spitting distance of my desk after lunch.  It's like while I was taking my company demanded lunch time  (believe me, I'd much rather skip it and leave earlier.)  the world fell apart and it's my fault and if she doesn't hound me with something the world will end and Lumbergh will have to blame someone so it might as well be me instead of her.

And now, my friends, that's the set up for the point of this blog.  the whole point is this conversation that happened 15 seconds after I got in from getting the mail after lunch.  She said, "Come in here, I have a question I need cleared up."

That is never, ever good.

I walk into her office, really in no mood for nonsense, given the 7 hours I've already had to live through. 

"I don't understand the notes on this one.  This was cancelled, but it doesn't say anything else."

I look at the notes in the customer's computer file.  Yes, they had purchased from us, but had cancelled the order a day later.  I took that call and killed the lead, meaning we were not to call this person ever again.  My notes included these words, "dead lead.  he is going in a different direction and cancelled his order."

So this is what I say, "Yes, he purchased from us.  then he cancelled his order the next day and I refunded his deposit and he told me he was going in a different direction."

She says, "well, I wish I would have known that.  I just called him to see if I can offer him a discount to go with us."

I point to the screen.  "well, I did enter a reminder in the notes."

She says, "but I didnt' know anything of what you just told me about him cancelling his order and going with someone else.  Next time can you tell me that or something?"

Again, I point to the list of notes.  My name is right there, the words DEAD LEAD and the explanation are all there.  "I did enter all that in the reminder note."

Have I mentioned she's told me several times she purposely doesn't read my notes?  Oh yeah.  It's only the main form of communication we have and she's told me she refuses to read my notes.

I look at her and realize that if I don't leave the office in that moment I will scream.  I have zero patience for stupid at this point.  So I say, "well, I entered all the information in the reminder notes." and I leave her office.

I take a stroll out to the shop where PM is working with a new installed.  I figure if I have to be someplace cold anyway, I'm going to spend some time with people who don't make me insane.  He apparently heard a bit of the conversation and asked me about it.  I tell him.  He knows.  he has to work with Noelle c, too.  His favorite thing is when she tells the customers anything they want to hear, whether we can fulfill her promises or not, and then passes the customers on to him.  I've told her to stop doing that mostly because if PM isn't around I have to take those calls and then I get to be the one who tells the customers that no, we aren't going to fix what we installed in their home because they decided it was a good idea to clog dance in gold shoes all over it.  "BUT THE OTHER GIRL SAID YOU Would."

The other girl is an idiot.

I return to my desk three minutes later, take a deep breath, and my phone rings.

"Come in here please."

for a woman who gripes about how she never gets to get up from her desk  (she also likes to announce how many hours it's been since she used the restroom.)  she does like to make me come to her a lot.

I go into her office and she hands me a note.  "I hope you're not going to cop an attitude about what I said before. I was just trying to get all the information clear."

It is at that point, friends, that I step outside myself and say, "this is what I'm doing with my life.  I'm forced to work with a passive aggressive paranoid nit wit who is in love with the boss and sees me as a threat for his affection and therefore must be cowed to at all times or suffer the wrath of her rage and angry paranoia. 

the note she handed me reiterates that I'd better not be mad at her because she's just trying to do her job and that if I have a problem with that then maybe I'd better think about whether or not I am doing everything I can to communicate properly with her.

Yep.  This is what I'm doing with my life now.

The upside is that I have a series of work place books that will probably never have an end, thanks to her.  So there's that.  

Five for Friday: I should have a bull horn in my car...

Good evening!

I've never made the claim that I am an awesome driver.  I'm a decent driver who believes that there's a minimum code of conduct we all need to follow so that everyone can get from point A to point B in a safe, smooth, timely, non-road-rage-inducing manner.  Today I realized that the only way that is going to happen is if I get a bull horn and keep it in my car...and here are five very valid reasons why:

5)  Go ahead, assume we know what maneuver you're going to make without using your directionals.

One of my biggest pet peeves while driving has to be people who move around the road making turns and lane changes without bothering to use their directionals.  Oh sure, most of us know exactly what the people around us are going to do, usually just by looking at the car/driver.  (Oh, an old lady in the far right lane, and she can't see over her steering wheel...yeah, she's going to make a left turn across four lanes of traffic right about....NOW!)

If I had a bullhorn in my car, I could inform those who are not communicating nicely with other drivers when they are being morons.  I could say things like:  "NICE USE OF DIRECTIONALS DINGBAT" and the person I'm directing it to would actually hear me, and perhaps learn something from it.

4)  Forget the signs, listen to me about speed limits.
We all pretty much agree, don't we, that you just don't go insane and speed in residential areas.  I mean, there are kids and pets running around, and so I think we all agree that residential streets are not for the high speeds.


That's what the interstate is for.

Don't you hate it when you're going along with traffic on a Friday night and everyone seems to be on the same page speed wise except for two people:  The guy next to you and the guy behind you.  The guy next to you is going your exact speed in spite of the fact that ten minutes ago he was loping along at 5 under the posted limit and everyone was passing him.  Then you get behind him, and pulled around him and now he won't let you pass him.

Which is why the guy behind you, who is going a wildly inappropriately high speed, has crawled up your tailpipe and won't back off.

If I had a bull horn in my car, I could scold both these menaces to polite road society simply by saying, "IF YOU ARE GOING FASTER THAN I AM YOU ARE A MORON AND IF YOU CAN'T DRIVE A STEADY SPEED ON THE INTERSTATE GET OFF AT THE NEXT EXIT AND TAKE SURFACE ROAD UNTIL YOU FIGURE Out HOW TO DRIVE WITH OTHERS."

3) Uncontrolled intersections...and people learning to drive stick shift.  I'm not saying I had an issue...not really...

Okay, so back in college, I had to go pick up some food for a friend who injured her leg.  I didn't have a car, but she did and she said I could drive it.  One tiny little problem...it was a stick shift.  I'd driven a stick shift exactly no times in my life to that point.  Never fear, I told another friend of mine, I can just cruise through the uncontrolled intersections, you just hang out the window and yell that we're coming.  It'll be fine.

It was, and I'm sure my friend Amber recognizes herself as the lucky one who got to hang out the window and yell, "SHE DOESN'T KNOW HOW TO STOP!  JUST LET US GO THROUGH!"

But if I had a bull horn in that circumstance, I wouldn't need Amber.  I could have just done it myself.

Now I know how to drive a stick shift, but given winter weather and the endless ways local budgets are spending plowing and salting money on other things and then get all surprised when winter shows up and they have no salt for the roads and no money to pay the plow guys, those intersections are pretty dicey.  I think having a bullhorn in my car to warn people when I can't stop would be a good thing.

2)  Some people at the ATM can't take a hint.

The average ATM  (Tyme machine) transaction takes 12 key punches and one insertion of your card.  And a full transaction takes about two minutes.  I know.  I timed it tonight on my way home.  Why did I time it?  Because the woman in front of me inserted her card 7 TIMES, pushed the buttons more times than I can count, and took away...yes, you guessed it...no cash!  however, she was able to hold up the Friday night rush to the cash machine very nicely for ten minutes.  If I had a bull horn, I'd be able to yell, "WOMAN, YOU HAVE NO MONEY.  TAKE THE HINT AND LET THE REST OF US GET OUR CASH AND ENJOY OUR FRIDAY NIGHT!"

1)  I need to communicate with my fellow drivers in a verbal way...especially the woman getting on I94 EB this morning at 7:01 AM.

We all have those moments when we wish we could hold up a sign and communicate with the driver we just passed.  Maybe we cut them off and want to apologize.  Maybe we want them to know their coat is dragging outside the door.  Or maybe, like this morning, we'd like to warn them that their snow brush is still on the trunk of their car and it will probably fly off on the interstate and kill someone behind them.  I really hope that woman could read my frantic sign language as she wheeled away from me.  A 30 inch snow brush is a weapon at 55 miles per hour.  Also, it's very funny to see someone driving around with a snow brush on top of their trunk.  But if I had a bull horn, I could have just said, "WOMAN, you left your snow brush on top of your trunk and you're going to kill someone!"

So there you go.  Have a great weekend all...I'm off for dinner with Hubby...and then who knows, maybe we'll go bullhorn shopping!

I suppose it would work for pedestrians, too, but that's another blog.

I finally take a great picture...and I can't show it to anyone!

Good evening!

like this, but with more clothes and body hair.

 

As we all know, gravity is no friend to the middle aged woman, especially if that woman is a little on the fluffy side.  What once seemed like steadfast mountains now resembles more closely the aftermath of an avalanche.  We have foundation garments that employ elastic, wires, padding, and elfin magic to at least mask the ill effects of gravity, but let's be honest here, the minute we are at home, we snap all that off and flop on the couch like a really saggy beached walrus...and yes, I'm including the fun chin hairs those majestic critters sport...because gravity isn't the only thing that betrays us in our middle years...hormones turn on us faster than a PMS-ing teen aged girl and give us the gift of hair...in all the wrong places.

So yes, I'm not a huge fan of photographic images of myself.  Every time I see a picture of myself I'm either sagging all over the place or, and this might be worse, I'm sucking things in and pulling things back so hard I'm starting to look like weird aging body builder. 

So anyway, last week I went in for what is supposed to be a yearly test for a middle aged lady's...ladies.  I've sort of been remiss in getting it done because 1)  I don't have the time or the energy to go to the hospital, put on a robe, drink some tea, and then have a woman drag my ladies across the hall and flatten them, and most of my back fat, in a panini press.

But I have a new doctor.  A new doctor who feels middle aged ladies should have their ladies photographed every year without fail and since they do that sort of photography in my local clinic now I really had no reason to put it off.

So I went to the clinic, put on the robe, but there was no tea.  In fact, the woman who walked me in  and handed me the robe was tapping her feet impatiently as I was putting on the robe because, well, this ain't no hospital kiddo, this is the radiology department of a very busy clinic and we have no time for tea or flowers or soft music or any of that.  You want that, you can go to the hospital where the aids wear pink.  But not in this clinic.

Nope, she ushered me to another room, and told me to step up to the panini press.  I was rather surprised, this was a newer model and far less...flattening.  However, she did have to politely ask me to move my hips back...(she can be as polite as she wants...i knew I needed to move my hips so  my gut fat would get out of the way.)  I was also impressed...the photographs turned out FABULOUS!

I'm not bragging here, it's the truth.  My ladies have not looked so perfect, so non sagging, in many years.  Forget Playtex or Maidenform ladies!  If you want the ladies to look like they did twenty years ago, you need to stick them in that big old clinical panini press and tape that image to your sweater.  Put something clever on there like, "This is what they really look like..."

CAN I PUT MY WHOLE BODY IN THAT PANINI PRESS AND TAKE A PICTURE AND LOOK TWENTY YEARS YOUNGER?

If only.

Nope, I finally take a picture of at least part of me that looks AWESOME and I can't show it to anyone.

Well, except the gung ho new doctor I have.    Like that's going to be any big whoop-de-doo.