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The Japan Trend Shop is one step ahead of the curve.
Again.
I didn’t even know I had this unmet need. And they have solved it for me.
The Thumb Extender for Phone Touchscreens by Thanko will not only lengthen my thumb, it will prevent my thumb from suffering needless exhaustion.
From their web site:
Don't you just hate it when your fingers can't get around the screen on your phone fast enough? Or when you need two hands for those recent phones with larger screens? Well, just slip on the Thumb Extender for Phone Touchscreens by Thanko and never have to worry about getting a tired thumb from all that sliding over the screen.
This is fantastic! Now my thumb can take that much needed nap.
Which reminds me of a Kimmy story. When she was about 3 she was playing with Legos and decided to throw one across the room. "Honey, don't throw your Legos," I scolded. To which she replied, "It wasn't my idea. It was my thumb's idea."
Think about how much further she could have catapulted that Lego had she owned a Thumb Extender.
As much as I’d love to have a Thumb Extender (so that I would no longer have to worry about getting a tired thumb), it’s $28, plus shipping and handling. That is way out of my blog budget.
So I made my own!
I had a pair of purple rubber gloves leftover from my wallpaper removal debacle.
After meticulous measurement and cautious cutting I had the framework for my Nerdling Thumb Extender.
Then, sparing no expense, I stuffed some toilet paper into the end of the thumb, and...voila!
Except it needed something.
I mean, I could "just” replicate theThumb Extender for Phone Touchscreens, but that would be so...so...so status quo. Being the marketing genius that I am I needed to raise the bar.
So I added Nail Polish. With sparkles.
Now it’s time to test drive it.
In fact, I’m going to test drive it right now. I will finish up this blog entry while sporting my Nerdling Thumb Extender.
Kind of exciting, isn't it? Almost like reality television. (That is how avant-garde this blog is.)
Here I go! Drum roll please.
Erjloiu34fdm sdd340dsva hfd 23cn,gfs;n.dg er394 8zdcvjeajaerug s er! dasfjkl
dkjw cn5d pe4 88xc,f;jqf9bcxs'wie r r349
dsljkr! di
I suppose it could be worse.
It could be the National Enquirer, instead of The State Newspaper.
Damn! Why do we have to have such an excellent publicity person?
Please don't think I'm being vain. It's a really, really unflattering photo.
That's what I get for being a good sport. When the director asked me to play the role of the "body" during the publicity photos for A Funny Little Thing Called Love, I willingly agreed. I mean how could I possibly turn her down?
Nobody else in the cast has the vast experience I’ve had playing bodies. In fact, I played the dead body TWICE in 9 to 5. At the risk of appearing arrogant, my character was quite authentic. I never moved. Even though my nose itched.
That's the problem here. I look really dead in this picture. And the ironic thing is, I’m not supposed to be dead. Just passed out.
I’ve taken bad pictures before. On the scale of horrendous photos, this one falls somewhere between my first grade class picture and my 1992 drivers license.
I just don’t understand why Glenn picked that photo. There were at least 3 better ones.
Like this one:
Glenn is such a perfectionist. He probably didn't pick it because I was looking at the camera.
I suppose that’s why he didn’t pick this one either.
But for crying out loud, this next one was perfect. My eyes were closed and everything.
OMG! I think I get it now. I’m not even in that scene. I was just filling in for someone else.
Glenn must have been worried about me upstaging everyone else with my beauty.
Damn him.
One might wonder why I had a bag of frozen chicken bones on my passenger seat. Not frozen chicken wings. Frozen chicken bones.
And I was late for my haircut.
The bag of bones would have to stay in my car for an hour. Because I couldn't - no wouldn't - take them inside. I mean, how could I explain it?
They were in a somewhat transparent Food Lion bag.
It's February. Surely they wouldn't thaw out and stink up my car in one hour's time.
Most (normal) homes have a process for removing kitchen trash. It probably goes something like this:
- The kitchen trash can gets full.
- The bag is taken to the outside trash can.
- On garbage day the outside trash can is taken to the street.
Simple, really.
Our process is a bit more complicated.
Trash that has the potential to "ripen" while waiting for garbage day (like chicken bones do), is put in plastic bags and stored in the freezer until garbage day.
And I'm totally cool with this process.
Unless Dave forgets to put it in the garbage day trash.
Last night we were going to the mall. Dave said, “Take the chicken bones with you.”
“Mom doesn’t like to do that,” Linda responded, perceptively.
Damn right. I still have psychological scars from that watermelon debacle. The bag of watermelon rinds was so big it wouldn't fit into the opening of the trash can outside of JC Penny.
I pushed. I shoved. I put every ounce of my bodily weight into it.
“Hurry Mom,” Linda said. “Someone’s coming!”
“IT- ugh –WON'T -ugh – FIT.”
Talk about a trying to fit a square peg into a round hole.
I thought about opening the bag and moving the rinds from within the bag into the trash can one at a time but that would have been messy. And really embarrassing.
Crap. Someone was coming.
I started trying to pry the top off the damn can. What was it SUPER GLUED on?
"Linda, help," I whispered. Then louder, "Linda? Get over here and help me!"
But she was gone.
In the meantime, people started parading past, elbowing each other. “That’s so sad. Going through the trash outside JC Penny.”
In the end I just set the bag of watermelon rinds on the ground next to the garbage can and nonchalantly walked into the store.
Damn it. I was not going to have a reenactment of that watermelon mall debacle.
I accidentally forgot to take the chicken bones to the mall.
But unfortunately, when I went to leave for to my hair cut appointment this morning, the chicken bones were waiting for me. On the passenger seat of the car.
Damn, is he persistent.
I told Jennifer (my hairstylist) the predicament I faced and she told me that there happened to be a trash can right outside the door.
I got my bag of bones from the car and innocently strolled down the sidewalk. I whistled a happy tune. Beautiful day! Just taking a walk. La-la-la-la.
And I made the drop.
Smooth as glass.
I should be in the CIA I'm that good.
I just hope for Jennifer's sake, that the garbage can doesn't get too stinky.
I heard the tell-tale click. It was a telemarketing call.
“Hello, this is Amanda and I’m calling to talk to you about the interest rate on your credit card.”
Oh, no. A robo-call. The worst kind of telemarketing call. Being a marketing genius I am quite familiar with voice-activated auto-dialer technology. I decided to play along.
“Hi Amanda. Are you a robot?”
Amanda chuckled and said, “I’m a real person.”
I guess I was wrong. I said, “Wow. You sound like Siri.”
Amanda said, “I’m calling to talk to you about the interest rate on your credit card.”
OMG. She WAS a robot! That is some script. She had me totally fooled.
“Amanda, you are a robot.”
Amanda said, “I don’t know why you think I’m a robot. I’m a real person.”
OK, I guess maybe she was real. “Your voice sounds like a robot," I explained.
“I’m calling to talk to you about the interest rate on your credit card.”
I was getting so confused. Really only one way to tell. A trick question.
“Amanda, do you like to plant tomatoes?”
Let’s see if that stinkin’ voice activated auto-dialer anticipated THAT question!
“What are you talking about? Do you want to talk to me about your credit card or not?”
She was real.
I think.
“No. I have to go tend to my tomatoes.” And I hung up. Flustered.
Because I really didn't know for sure.
But you know what? She never really answered my question. If she was real, she would have said something like "I'm allergic to tomatoes" or "I really suck at farming."
But instead she said, "What are you talking about. Do you want to talk to me about your credit card or not?”
That response could have answered any number of trick questions.
I have been out-smarted by a robot.
I think.
Either that or I tricked her.
I admit it. Sometimes my enthusiasm for projects causes me to jump in too fast.
Some might call me fearless.
Others may call me stupid.
But how difficult could it possibly be to make a lamp out of my new leg?
Certainly, the hardest part would be finding a shoe that fit on her foot. I mean, besides Barbie, whose foot is shaped like that?
I tried on some of my own shoes. They looked ridiculous.
Before heading out to Warehouse Shoes with my leg, I decided to look in Kimmy’s room. SCORE!
So I headed to Target to find the perfect lamp shade and then to the fabric center, where I found some lovely, funky red fringe that perfectly matched my leg’s new shoe.
I was almost done!
I stopped at Lowes to pick up the other stuff. You know, the cord and the thingee that holds the lamp shade on. Oh, and the what-cha-ma-call-it. You know.... That thing with the button that you push to turn the light on.
I carried my leg into Lowes and asked the girl in the Lighting department to show me what I needed to buy in order to make a lamp out of my new leg. She told me I would have to come back on Monday. When the Electrician was there.
WTH?
So I went to Home Depot. A very nice guy, let’s call him “Joe”, directed me to the wall of lamp stuff. But when I pulled out my leg, Joe immediately got on his walkie-talkie and called in the big gun, Herman.
“Hey Herman,” Joe said, pointing to my leg. “This lady wants to make a lamp out of that leg.”
Herman and Joe circled my leg, touching it tentatively at first, then lifting and shaking it. Well, not my real leg. My new leg.
Did I mention that the top of my (new) leg was not level to the ground? Apparently the slant makes the project significantly more complicated.
“Listen, lady” said Herman, shaking his head. “That is not an easy project.”
Then they started their tech talk. (They were probably trying to impress me.) Dropping words like 3-way socket. And threaded rod. And lamp pipe.
And electrocuted.
That’s when I had a scathingly brilliant epiphany.
My leg would make a lovely vase!
But then again...
Who says a lamp needs to light up?
You don't tug on Superman's cape.
You don't spit into the wind.
You don't pull the mask off that old lone ranger.
And you don’t buy a Groupon massage.
But the price was right.
And my neck was really, really sore.
I arrived right on time for my massage. I was optimistic; the facility was much nicer than the spa in the Food Lion plaza that went out of business.
I was greeted by my massage therapist, let’s call her “Willow”. Willow was debriefing her 4:00 client, advising her to drink a lot of water because she had “pressed a lot of her organs.”
“You pressed her organs?” I asked. (I couldn’t resist.)
“Yes, she did,” said 4:00, “and it was the best massage I ever had.”
Wow! I couldn’t wait for Willow to press my organs!
Little did I know that she was going to press my organs using my feet as remote controls. As it turns out, a Reflexology Massage is a stinkin’ foot massage.
Before Willow began my Reflexology foot massage, she measured my “bio-markers”. I had to put my hand on a magical mouse which determined how many of my bio-markers were out-of-range.
I am not making this up.
I told Willow that I didn’t even know I had bio-markers but if they were out-of-range I was all in favor of bringing them back.
I had 32 bio-markers out of range. Willow assured me that Eucalyptus and Geranium oils would help heal my bio-marker imbalance.
Whew.
At the start of my massage, Willow dribbled some Eucalyptus oil onto the palm of my hand. She instructed me to rub my hands together, place my palms over my nose and slowly inhale.
It smelled like the damn Koala building at Riverbanks Zoo.
I tried not to gag as I moved my hands underneath my body, wiping the offensive oil on the sheets.
I closed my eyes.
Willow began to blow on my feet. OMG. What if she starts to lick them? I decided to get her talking.
“So, Willow…. can you really massage my neck by pushing on my feet?”
“Yes...” Willow purred.
“What about my shoulders?”
“Oh yes,” Willow said. “It works like acupuncture.”
Well that made me feel better. Not.
For the next 40 minutes Willow pushed on all my organs: my kidneys, my spleen, even my heart.
At the end of the session, I realized that my neck still hurt like hell. Plus my left leg, which had been strained in a wallpaper removal injury, was throbbing.
Perhaps it had been exacerbated by all that organ pushing.
But you know what?
My feet felt amazing.
The shopping trip to Lowe’s Wednesday night was quite ordinary.
Except for those 5 minutes.
I had been walking around the bathroom section looking for a cabinet I’d seen online. Linda, who was just along for the ride, was getting bored and impatient.
“Hurry up Mom. It must not be here.”
“It’s here somewhere,” I said, as I wandered around, up and down every aisle that contained anything resembling a cabinet. Linda followed me like a baby duck trailing her mother. With her nose in her iPhone.
Then we heard some kind of ruckus coming from the front of the store. It sounded like they were filming the Jerry Springer show in the paint section.
Hey… this could be fun, I thought.
Except a Lowes' employee ran up to us and said, “Go to the back of the store! Find a hiding place.”
I looked at him dully, “What?”
He said, “RUN! NOW! Find a safe hiding place. Go as far back in the store as you can get.”
We took off running. We ran into the Netherlands of Lowes. Where ordinary customers aren’t allowed. Just the special ones who were told to go hide.
It was exciting. We were hiding in Lowes!
That is until I overheard another customer, who was hiding near us dial 9-1-1. She whispered urgently into her phone, “We are in Lowes and somebody’s got a gun.”
That was news to me.
Somebody had a gun. OMG.
The rational Lou thought that it was probably nothing.
But then I remembered Sandy Hook Elementary School. And that movie theatre in Aurora, Colorado. And Virginia Tech.
Then I got scared.
Linda had been about 10 feet from me. I motioned her to come over by me. I put my arms around her and we tried to make ourselves invisible.
But we were like fish in a barrel. Our hiding place stunk. We should have stayed in the bathroom section. There were way better hiding places there.
After what seemed to be an hour, but was only 5 minutes, the other hiding customers waved us out. We hesitantly walked back into the retail area.
The store seemed completely normal. It was surreal. Customers were looking at floor tiles. And toilets.
I walked up to an employee and said, “Um, what just happened?” He said, “I’m not sure.” So I said, “Can you help me find a cabinet I saw online?”
He did.
But I was way too wound up to purchase it. We decided to leave the store.
Police cars were lined up in front of the store when we left. Two officers were talking to the store manager. We heard bits and pieces of the story. Something about a fight breaking out and an overdose of testosterone.
“Was there a gun?” asked one police officer. “Oh, no,” said the manager. “There was no gun.”
Over the past few nights I have had nightmares about those 5 minutes. And I’ve come up with all kinds of hiding places just in case history repeats itself. In a kitchen cabinet. Behind the lumber. In a trash can.
My safe, suburban life has returned to normal.
But those 5 minutes?
Anything but.
