Perhaps the dorkiest thing I've ever done was to program my laptop computer with John McLaughlin's voice so that, instead of the little "ding" sound for an error, it would actually shout, "Wrong!"
Anyway, I am much better now at pretending to be cool, but I'm still a sucker for a guy who yells, "Prediction!" before he offers his opinion on how anything will turn out.
In honor of John McLaughlin, and because predictions are so much more fun than resolutions, it's time to make some guesses about what 2006 will hold.
I've been a big consumer of all those disposable "wipe" products: from Swiffer cloths to Clorox wipes (actually the Target store brand version of those) and the specialty ones with lemon-scented furniture polish and Armor-All for the car and some sort of magic stainless steel cleaner that takes the finger prints off our fancy kitchen garbage can.
But I recently decided that this was producing entirely too much garbage and the environmentally decent thing to do was to switch from all this one-time use stuff to something reusable.
Thus, I went to Ace Hardware and bought a dust cloth, a glass-cleaning cloth, a package of scrubbing sponges and a super-absorbent dish towel, for a total of $17.96, plus tax.
Later, it occured to me that I'd just spent 20 bucks on rags.
I'm not sure exactly how I feel about all these genetically engineered Franken-foods. But, as long as people are messing with our food, couldn't someone make a regular orange that is seedless and easy-to-peel like a Clementine?
On my first day at the Sun-Times, I was given several black plastic items as a "desk set."
This, I should point out, is actually several more things than are usually given to new employees here. But I was hired by an editor (long since gone) who believed in really spoiling her writers.
So I got my own stapler, tape dispenser, letter opener, Post-It note holder, in-and-out box set, magazine holder, daily calendar and Rolodex.
Being enough of a geek to be fully committed to paperless-ness (not a popular attitude at a newspaper, but never mind that), I've never used either the calendar or the Rolodex.
If you can come up with a creative use for them, they're yours.
1.) Altoids Chewing Gum - cinnamon flavor. It's sugar free, about 2.5 calories per piece, and pleasantly spicy with just a hint of sweetness. If I could find a use for the cute little tins (which do seem sort of wasteful), I'd be over the moon.
2.) Delphi's MyFi portable satellite radio. Maybe it's a little arrogant to endorse a gift that I, nominally, gave to someone else. (OK, I gave it to my husband, but largely because I really wanted to be able to listen to the BBC. The other channels are for him.) But this little thing totally rocks. You get like a million radio channels with no commercials. Or even pledge breaks. You can use it like a walkman or in the car. And with the docking station/speaker deal you can get at Sharper Image, you can listen to it like a stereo. Last night, we listened to stand up comedy routines while cleaning up our shared home office. (Note: this is the network that has Bob Edwards, not Howard Stern.)
I e-mailed someone at a New York publishing company this morning and got back one of those auto-responses that she's out of the office until Jan. 3 and if you need anything immediately, contact her assistant. So I forwarded the original e-mail to the assistant.
And I got back one of those auto-responses that she's out of the office until Jan. 3 and if you need anything immediately, you should contact a different assistant.
When you e-mail that assistant, you get an auto-response message that says the offices are closed.
I'm not a big returner of stuff. Basically, if I buy something, I buy it. I cut the tags off immediately and, if it turns out that I don't use it, I let it hang around for a while, as a reminder of my mistake, and then give it away.
And, until I got married, I felt the same way about gifts. If someone gave me something, I kept it -- whether a gift receipt was attached or not.
Then we receieved some truly awful wedding presents.
And it was just too tempting.
Now, I feel like I've crossed some sort of divide. Like I'm becoming a return-er.
And I now find myself contemplating the exchange (even, possibly, the return) of a Christmas gift from my husband.
He gave me wonderful, cool and thoughtful presents, as he generally does. I love the New Yorker cartoon book and the almanac to answer my obscure questions when he's not around to be my primary source of trivial knowledge and the Office Space DVD (my favorite movie ever, except for The Graduate) and the cool gadget that lets me listen to my iPod on the car stereo and the several other inside-joke gifts that make me laugh and, at the same time, feel like an increasingly smug married.
But the black leather briefcase . . . .
I'm just not sure.
It's beautiful and sophisticated-looking.
But I'm just not really a briefcase kind of gal. Or I don't think I am, anyway.
So should I try to exchange it for something a little more funky? Or should I become the briefcase-carrying grown-up that I probably really should be at this point in my life?
R. and I headed west on Saturday morning, on the way to an Iowa Christmas with two of his brothers and their families.
We stopped in Davenport for lunch (I recommend the small taco salad at Ganzo's) and realized we needed to pick up a couple of Christmas-in-Iowa supplies: a bottle of champagne to enjoy that night while assembling the some-assembly-required toys our 8, 5 and 3-year-old nephews would be getting from Santa; plus some scratch-off lottery tickets to stuff in the older kids' stockings.
We ran into a HyVee (for the uninitiated, that's a big grocery-and-drug store, like a Jewel) for a minute, thinking we'd be able to knock both items off our list.
Here's the thing about walking in to a grocery store in Iowa: everyone says hello to you. And they say it in such a pleasant and sincere way that you're sure they actually know you. (Or, in my case, I'm certain they know my husband, even though he hasn't lived in Iowa for almost 20 years.)
But they don't know you.
They're just being nice. Which I always find freaky. Because I don't know how to respond. Should I stop walking and start a conversation? It sort of seems like that kind of hello. But what would we talk about?
It took four hellos, which R., speaking Iowan, answered pleasantly (but not conversationally) enough for both of us (apparently it is acceptable to smile, wave and just keep going), to get to the liquor section to look for the champagne.
We arrived to find a woman whose gone-on-to-college-and-gotten-some-citified-ways son was coming home for Christmas. She was nervously trying to select a wine to serve with Christmas dinner, since he now drinks wine with his meals.
She'd enlisted two store employees and several customers in the process and had (with their help) just about settled on a selection by the time we walked over. But she still needed affirmation.
"So this merlot (pronounced "mur-lott") is pretty good then?" she asked no one in particular, as we scampered away so we didn't have to answer. Or recommend a cab-ur-nett instead.
We found some Washington State bubbly. (Advantage of HyVee: nothing costs more than $15. Disadvantage of HyVee: this includes the wine.)
And then, after hitting the ATM for some cash, we used a vending machine to buy $20 worth of scratch-off lottery tickets.
Getting back into the car to continue our drive, we had to wonder if the stop might have qualified as a punch line for one of those "you might be a redneck" jokes, like "If you're spending more money on lottery tickets than on wine for the Christmas celebration at your brother's place . . . ."
I was in the middle of a long bus trip from Nairobi, Kenya to Arusha, Tanzania when I turned to my travelling companion and said, "You know, I really feel awful."
Since I was in Africa, my brain was listing off all the really horrible diseases I might have. But then Tom looked at me and said quietly, "I think you're just hungover."
Oh, right.
That happened again this morning. I just couldn't get out of bed. So I was sure my stubborn cold had turned into pneumonia or something equally dreadful.
And then my husband pointed out how much cough syrup (10 percent alcohol - yum) I'd had before bed.
It's really gratifying to get letters from the wonderful people who read the Sun-Times.
But sometimes I get letters from the jerks, too. Like this one:
Debra,
Pages 1-2-and 3 in The Sun-Times today; Iraqis vote to choose parliament, Midway flight tradgey story continues, Iran leader wants to wipe Isreal of the face of the planet, Ex Sun-Times boss charged with racketeering, and Debra Pickett is baking cookies! Actually the ongoing story of the Iranian leader seeking the destruction of Israel is further back in the newspaper as your cookie baking experience is so much more important to hear about first.
Thank god the recipe you received from your new husband's old girlfriend is one from someone who is now married and living in Australia, otherwise I would fear him gravitating to anyone who has a better grasp of the real world. Thank god your situation seems safe for now.
Yes, a full two column story today on your on-going effort to bake some spendicious cookies. When I read about how making your own Christmas tree ornaments had given you a couple of paper cuts, I thought I'd faint. I almost chuckled when you reported that that "it was touch and go for awhile". I can imagine! We could have lost our precious Debra Pickett to paper cuts but instead you survive to write about a lame cookie baking experience today. It's priceless!
I must ask you again, how do you get away with it? A story on baking cookies right there next to all the crime, hate, tradegy, and human suffering. I guess it's the newspaper's way of adding a little lighhearted nothing into the paper for other women who's biggest worries are paper cuts and getting good cookies baked at Christmas time, and maybe they're a lot of these superficial idiots out there, and I'm sure there are, but Jesus, how did you get so lucky as to be chosen to take these average writing skills to page 2 and write about such drivel again?
On page 5 the good news that 11 million in the U.S. are not literate and therefore saved from having to read your articles. Hopefully, none of those 11 million will have your article read to them. Can you imagine the astonishment and fright of having that happen? Hearing about hurricanes, earthquakes, suicide bombings, tsunamis, hate crimes and Debra Pickett's Cookie baking experiences are just hard to digest, no pun intended.
"Because, really, the most important thing will be that everyone has a good time".
That incomplete sentence is the final paragraph in your god awful article today, replacing the "maybe a marshmallow is just a marshmallow", unforgettable finale. I must tell you that I am becoming a big fan of your page two articles because of the astonishment factor I receive upon reading them. It's absolutely amazing! How do you get away with it? How were you chosen? I know you've ignored me up until now, but can't you just tell me how you've accomplished this? It's truly amazing! I almost feel like writing a book or at least a 2 hour screen play on your amazing story. Who should paly the lead roll, Nicole Kidman, Sharon Stone, Whoopi Goldberg? Give me some feedback.
Congratulations, and have a wonderful holiday season. Forget about the old girlfriend, you da woman now, take care of those serious paper cuts and please be careful, the lame and the bored are counting on you to level off this mean, cruel world with your meaningless drivel.
Happy Holidays!
AL BRODSKY
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Dear Al,
Great to hear from you. I look forward to reading your coulmn every week.
Probably because I've never had a cavity or a root canal, I'm not one of those people who gripes a lot about going to the dentist's office.
The dentist my parents took me to as a kid was a super-nice guy who played Culture Club tapes in his office and artfully used a combination of custom-made retainers and tiny, transparent rubber bands to spare me the indignity of wearing braces. (Of course, now I have this one slight snaggly tooth in front. But it was still worth it.)
And the dentist I see now is a very cool woman who makes jokes about how boring it is to be a dentist and wears neon-trimmed Nikes with her scrubs.
But dental hygienists are another story.
What is with these people?
Pretty much without exception, the dental hygienists I've encountered have been both sadistically mad with their own power ("Open wider. No, wider.") and incredibly sanctimonious about issues like twice-daily flossing.
Lately, I keep getting stuck with Cheryl.
I'm sure she's a nice enough person outside the office, but, somehow, whenever I see her, things seem to go incredibly badly.
She rails about how small my mouth is (ironic, I know) and the apparently strange tendency of my gums to bleed when poked with a sharp instrument.
She also carries on about the importance of gum maintenance to my overall health, routinely warning of the dire consequences I'll face if I don't get with the whole flossing program.
It's getting to the point where I'm sorely tempted to point out that (1) her obesity is probably a bigger health risk than my shoddy flossing habits and (2) maybe it's just that her hands are too large.
In fact, I was kind of feeling like this might be the morning when I really let her have it.
But when she walked in to the exam room, she whispered that she had lost her voice. And so I got to have my teeth cleaned in blissful silence.
It was the best dental appointment ever, unspoiled even by the fact that the free toothbrush they gave me is pink and will totally clash with my bathroom decor.
I know the concept of fake, soy-based egg nog is a hard one to embrace. But, seriously, people, this stuff is ridiculously good. It takes exactly like egg nog, but without that strange, heart attack-y feeling you sometimes get when you drink too much of the real stuff.
2. Hipster tights by Hue.
I bought them at Nordstrom, but they might be available at other department stores as well. These are tights that are cut to be wearable under low rise waists and it's amazing it took this long for someone to invent them. I'm wearing them under jeans as a sort of almost long underwear layer and they're keeping me quite cozy. Not terribly useful for guys, I know, but oh well.
The only lasting result, as I understand it, from the last New York City transit strike, was the Reeboks-and-gym-socks-with-your-business-suit look. People got used to wearing them on their walking commutes and then didn't part with them when the trains started running again.
So you have to wonder what will catch on this time. My money's on rugged hiking boots and hats with ear flaps.
