Moments after I was born, Dr. Felsenbaum greeted me with a slap on my heinie. Naturally, I was too young to understand the significance of the gesture and took immediate offense to being manhandled straight out of the womb. As it turns out, it wouldn’t be the last time someone slapped me on my backside. I just wished he would have given me a firm hand shake instead. That whack on the bum was my first introduction to a long list of quaint American greeting traditions and was meant to get me started crying and breathing. Of course, I didn’t know that at the time. I would have preferred a…
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Maneuvering Through M&Ms Grocery shopping has gotten brutal out there
I’m the kind of person who can go their entire life without telling someone what to do. Call me lazy, but I think anyone over the age of 12 should have enough sense to do the right thing—like moving their shopping cart to the side of the aisle when they run over to grab the pickles they forgot. Apparently though, I stand alone on this subject, so I’m going to take this opportunity to expound on the way supermarkets should be run—through a four-point plan for supermarket and shopper regulation. Point one would require all shoppers to be at least 21 years of age to operate a shopping cart. In…
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Five Minutes from Lorraine Moxie CrimeFighter & Cholera Priest: babies' names have gone wild
During the period affectionately known as the Baby Boom, routine amniocentesis and maternal sonograms were still years away. And while the 50s and 60s can claim fame to some of the best music in the history of the universe, its struggling medical practices offered no help to new parents trying to choose their babies’ names. That being the case, one would think the prudent thing to do would be to spread your bets equally across two columns of baby names: one for boys and one for girls. But my parents were so convinced that I was going to be a girl, they put everything on pink and let it ride.…
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Instructions 101 We all need a little help... even with toilet paper
For the past year and a half, I’ve woken up to a familiar greeting from my digital alarm clock. 12:00 12:00 12:00 12:00 12:00. Ever since the power went out, my alarm clock has been winking at me, hoping that one day, I’ll learn how to set its time. Fat chance. I don’t have a clue how to follow instructions. It’s not that I haven’t tried. One evening last week, I dragged out the user manual to try to figure out how to change the time from 12:00 midnight to the correct time of the day – which, as luck would have it was 12:00 midnight. Like most user manuals,…
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Putting Lipstick on a Pig* How to avoid getting thrown under the bus while getting your ducks in a row
As someone who’s written professionally for a number of years, I always try to avoid euphemisms, choosing vernacular the average businessman or woman understands. Instead of going back to the drawing board for each game plan, I like to hit the ground running by thinking outside of the box. I’ll usually begin by going after customer-centric, low-hanging fruit, getting my manager’s blessing with the subject matter, to avoid getting thrown under the bus. After years of working with difficult editors, I’ve found drilling down and touching base with management helps deliver more bang for the buck when the marketing department keeps moving the goal posts. For instance, last week, I…