The mini-pad dilemma

Have you ever been carrying a mini-pad around in your pocket, at work, and you had your hands in your pockets, in the staff room, waiting around for the coffee to brew and looking around dopily because you're bored stupid and it takes forever to make so-called "instant" coffee, and you suddenly realize the mini-pad isn't in your pocket anymore, it's on the staff room floor which is called "staff room" because there is staff in it?

What do you do?

Pretend it's not there, knowing full well every person in the office will be saying, "Ew, Cathy dropped a mini-pad in the staff room and didn't pick it up" all day long and possibly for the rest of your career?"

Pick it up quickly and hope no one noticed, knowing full well they did? And the whole picking-up process is so embarrassing that it happens in slo-mo, and your face is a rictus of frozen cherry-popsicle coloured humiliation?

Make a big deal out of it? Like, "Oh lookit that, I dropped my mini-pad! Ho, ho, ho! Good thing it's not a used one, eh? Ho, ho, ho! Lookie me, I'm a big dumbass. Ho, ho, ho!"

Not that it has ever happened to me. (Yesterday.)

"Really North of Wiarton and There's No Checkerboard in Sight"

So there's this blog called Just North of Wiarton and East of the Checkerboard and it's run by this lovely lady whose name I don't know because she hasn't posted it, so I'll just call her Checkerboard. Every day Checkerboard records the events of her life with gazillions of photos which is great because, unlike me, Checkerboard has an interesting life. She also has SO much energy that I swear she has a closet full of Red Bull, sneaks in there, guzzles it by the case and burps gaseous globules of meth-like and enthusiastic zip. Not that I'm making fun of Checkerboard. Well, not on purpose anyway. I do love her blog and visit it every chance I get. Still, I can't help but envy the cool stuff she does every single day. I thought, man, if I recorded the details of my day, it would bore everyone to death. To prove the mundane-ness of my existence, yesterday I took my camera everywhere I went and recorded the day for posterity. Yes, yes, yes, it's BORING. If you want real action, go visit Checkerboard. (LOVE YOU CHECKERBOARD!) Meanwhile, in pic number one, that's my Travelocity garden gnome saying farewell as I head to the Jeep to begin the work day. I actually went to take his picture and realized the camera battery was still in the charger, so back into the house I went, car keys floundering in the lock, hissing under my breath about my complete lack of foresight and thinking there was no way Checkerboard would do something like that. Meantime, Travelocity Gnome sat there, trying to be patient, while Karsh here fumbled around with the camera. No wonder the little man in the red hat travels. Can only stand our incompetence for so long at a time.

8:50 a.m. Jeep's thermometer says 15 degrees Celsius. That's 59 F in case you're not up on your Metric equivalency. (I'm not. I had someone google it for me.) Either way, it's fricking chilly for an August morning.

8:51 a.m. "Our"  bridge. My favourite part of coming or going, crossing this bridge. The guy in the car gives me a funny look. Probably thinks I'm with the FBI. Which I totally am. (Fat. Bald. Ignorant. Yup.)

8:52. I stop on the bridge, blocking all traffic, to take a photo of the river. Look! Red leaves! Fall's coming! So is a big guy in a pick-truck, ready to punch my lights out for being in his way! Gotta go!

8:52 In the kerfuffle my sunglasses are knocked to the floor, right next to my pink flip-flops and my lizard green toenails. It looked good in the bottle but the green makes me look like a corpse. I catch glimpses of it sometimes and it scares the crap outta me. Dave says it's like sleeping with The Walking Dead.

9 a.m. and not a minute later, I swear. Late? Who me? Pffft.... This is the front of my work, where the important people park. People who are "on time." (Keeners.)

9 a.m. The back entrance, for people like me. The garbage bins and pallets are nice decorative touches. As is the butt bucket under the picnic table, which you can't see from this angle. One summer we had a problem with raccoons getting stuck in the garbage. We made little raccoon ladders and put them in the bins and watched them climb in and out. It was the BEST summer ever!

9:02 a.m. OMG! DOUGNUTS! Somebody bought doughnuts from the World Famous Gravenhurst Bakery and put them on MY DESK! They're not just for me, of course, but my corner is in a central location, close to the door. My co-workers call me the Wal-Mart Greeter because everybody wanders by. It's a natural place for food placement. The plastic container has my lunch. Leftoever farfalle. Nom nom.

9:0-something a.m. Who cares what time it is! I'm focused on doughnuts! These aren't your everyday run of the mill doughnut shop chunks of lard. Oh no. These. Are. Choice. From a local bakery that makes the most phenomal stuff. I try to avoid it like the plague or I'd be the size of the Goodyear blimp. Gawd, I'd  be a happy blimp, though.

9:05 a.m. Signing in! (I should totally be a hand model.)

9:10 a.m. This is Cathy Black, who bought the doughnuts. While camera-shy, Cathy is the Greatest Woman on the Planet, second only to whoever the next person is who plies the office with food.

9:15 a.m. That is MY fat-free french vanilla coffee creamer. MINE! I don't mind if you ASK me to use it but don't just TAKE it and leave nothing left in the bottle except for VAPOURS. I put this sign on it the other day and hope the culprits will get the subtle message. One of my colleagues saw it, laughed and said he was going to write on it: "I spit in it, too." HAHAHAHAHA! (Good thing he didn't say 'shit.')

9:something. Coffee: make, drink, repeat.

As a direct result of expensive Pike Point Keurig coffee, the mid-morning pee break: OBVIOUSLY I hung this roll of toilet paper in the ladies washroom. I say "obviously" because you will notice it is hung the correct way. Unfortunately there are many deluded people in this world who have swallowed the Toilet Kool-Aid and insist the toity wipes be hung incorrectly.

Every workplace kitchen has its slobs. I am not one of them. I have done more work dishes in my time than the kitchen staff at Le Sizzler. Even these tactful signs don't seem to motivate the office slobinos. (I bet they're the ones who steal my coffee creamer.)

The inside of the Gravenhurst doughnut. Go ahead, drool. I did.  I'm sure this sweet whipped cream delight has absolutely nothing to do with the tremendous weight gain I've been experiencing lately. In fact, I'm positive carrots are to blame. I hear they're full of sugar. Nasty buggers, carrots are.

My son once said that all adults talk about, when children aren't around, is pie. He's actually right. Especially when someone like Salesman Rick brings in a homemade-ish pie from the Minett Bakery. Peach and raspberry, I think it was. I took a photo but I didn't actually get a slice. Ya gotta be quick around here. Somebody sent and e-mail around the offices yodelling the renowned Battlecry of the Refoodlic: "There's PIE in the kitchen!" One of the guys in a sister office, an hour's drive away, sent back a message saying he would like a slice e-mailed to him. That prompted Supervisor Gail to take a photo of our deliciousosities and ship the pic his way.

The guy said it tasted like plastic .... does this look like plastic to you?

By now you're probably wondering if I do any work. Well yes, occasionally. When the doughnut-eating, coffee-drinking festivities ground down to a sugar-and-carb-laced-low, I got to the business at hand which, on this day, was making real estate ads. I pretty much did this for eight hours straight. Oh, I designed the front pages of the Bracebridge and Gravenhurst Weekenders, too. But then I did more real estate ads. (This is just as exciting as it looks.)

My Betty Boop candy lip gloss was a gift from the editor of the local papers, Pamela Steel, who is also the fiercely talented author of SEVERAL bestselling cookbooks. She is one of the coolest people I know. And she gave me this. Don't you wish you had a friend like Pamela?

My iPod and the front of the Weekender. Yes, it's pink. All things should be pink.

Jason, who sits across from me, rants every once in a while about bad drivers and Apple computers. Today he was rantier than usual so I took his picture. Look at his angry little yellow head. I'd be be angry too if I had such a little yellow head.

Hey, now this is cool! That's my column laid out in the Weekender, ready to go to the printer and dazzle the world! The good news is I haven't got any angry letters to the editor lately. The bad news is they're not paying me yet.

5 p.m. and it's time to go home! There goes my pointy little modelling finger moving my magnet to the "out" side of the in/out board. Naturally the "out" position is my favourite.

Holy doodles it got hot out! That's a big temperature difference since this morning! Who cares! It's time to go home!

There's the bridge! I'm almost there!

Time to check the mail. I wonder what Rembrandt painted this beautiful mailbox?

Ooooh! A letter from Google! It must be a big fat cheque from everybody clicking on my ads! (Wot? It's junk mail? Rats.)

I open the front door and Misty the Wonderdog rushes out to greet me! She's all happy until she sees the camera in front of my face, then she thinks I'm a dog serial killer. She hasn't peed since 8:45 a.m. I could NOT hold my bladder for eight hours. Could you?

We're in a rush tonight because I have Writer's Group and Dave is fixing a guy's car, so we decide to head into town for a bite to eat. The plan is after we stuff our faces at A & W, I'll go north to Group and Dave will go back to the garage, so we take separate vehicles. That's him following me on his super cool motorcycle. He is such a stud-muffin.

Oh gawd, I'm getting bored with all these photos. I can't even imagine how bored YOU are. So I'll rush through the rest. This is Dave getting off his bike.

A & W. Love the Papaburgers. Hate the onion rings. Why do you make such sucky onion rings, A & W? Why?

Can't go to Writer's Group without a Timmy's! (How Canadian is this picture? Timmy's coffee, Canadian Tire money and a bunch of loose Canadian change?) Sorry my console is a mess... I wasn't expecting company. Besides, Dave was the one who spilled the coffee. Even though he doesn't drink coffee. Yup, that's my story and I'm sticking with it...

Meet the girls!!!! These are three of the most rockinest writers you will ever want to meet. That's Linda McLean, Dawn Huddlestone and Paula Boon. (Mizz Sasha Pringle wasn't able to make it tonight and we miss her terribly.) We meet twice a month, usually at Paula's house although we did have a FABULOUS dinner at Linda's last time (nom-nommy homemade hummus). We read each other's manuscripts, we offer helpful advice, we talk, we laugh, we talk some more and sometimes the laughing gets out of hand. Like here. (I think Dawn has lost it, frankly.... ) I LOVE THESE WOMEN. Hugs to you all.

When I got home at about 10:30 p.m. I was met by our surprise company! Carol Holden is Dave's sister and she had gallbladder surgery in Toronto in the morning and so wasn't feeling so hot. Her hubby Zane brought her to our house for a sleepover/stopover so she wouldn't have to have that awful jiggling and she could rest. Poor Carol. Get better soon!! 

Midnight. Time to go to bed while a beautiful full moon shines through the white pines. Good night moon, good night you. Good night longest blog post in the history of blog posts.... zzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Cake!

Let there be cake!

Ah, were more blessed words ever spoken? There should be cake on every holiday. It was International Women's Day not too long ago and I asked, because I always ask, "Is there cake for that?" And my friend said, "no," but there should be. I mean, Margaret Atwood's book The Edible Woman was all about a woman gaining independence and her sense of self-worth by baking a cake in the shape of herself and eating it. So if there's any holiday that needs a cake, it's that one.

Oh, also? According to The Watery Tart Hart Johnson, yesterday was International Outdoor Intercourse Day. Can you imagine a cake for that? If you're partnerless, it could be a single layer. If you're with your sweetie, it could be a two layer, one chocolate, one vanilla – up to you which one goes on top. And if you have more than one partner, you could have a multi-layered, multi-flavoured cake.... now we're talking!

Yesterday my sweet, wonderful and very weird colleagues surprised me with CAKE because it was my sixth anniversary working for the company. They were SO NICE (love them, love them like butter) and the cake was SO DELICIOUS. It was one of the new cakes from the bakery at Gagnon's Independent in Bracebridge (how I love that store) and it was absolutely fab. The whole thing got demolished in a matter of minutes.

So thank you, lovely lovely people. Big buttercream-covered hugs and sugary kisses to you all!

The photo, which was taken by my colleague, Gail (thanks!), shows a multitude of things: my humongous arms that are bigger than my head (I have the fattest arms in the world. It's true. They're in the Guinness Book of Fat Arm World Records); my calendar from charming, talented Nova Scotia artist and blogger Shelagh Duffett; the Coffee Mate creamer that I don't use anymore because it's fattening (unlike the cake, which doesn't count); my disgusting, empty salad bowl from lunch; Fibre One cereal for bowel-happy snacking; my fan for occasional hot flashes; and my Star Wars award poster for being uber Star Warsy (it was a company awards thingey. I won for creativity – I'm making fun of it but secretly I'm still proud of the whole thing); and finally, the falling-apart arm of my leather chair that my sweetie bought for me when I first started working there... six years ago... wow. Hard to believe.

A nice guy

I've gotta say I've fallen head over heels in love with my job this week. (I'm nothing if not fickle but apparently my reproductive organs claim it's my prerogative.)

The reason for this burst of starry-eyed affection is the vice president of the company. He's been working out of our office this past week or so, giving us leadership in a crisis. Our beloved general manager had a heart attack last week and is still in serious condition – we miss him terribly and hope, pray and wish he gets better SOON.

I never knew our vice president. Our company is a big one, encompassing most of Ontario, and the VP works in a city an hour away from me. I knew what he looked like. I'd seen him occasionally but usually his presence struck the fear of god into me. It was like, uh oh, HE's here – we're in trouble now! But, at the risk of sounding inane, he's WONDERFUL.

Every morning he brings his coffee, or his tea (Water? Hooch? Who knows? It's something in a mug!) and strolls casually through the entire building, saying hello to EVERYONE. Not just hello – he asks us how we're doing; how our projects are coming along. Heck, he even talks about American Idol with us! On Sunday he baked Montreal-style bagels with his own hands and brought them into the office along with real butter and honey. Yesterday he bought pizza for everyone at lunchtime. (I managed to avoid both treats – I appreciate the gesture immensely but I'm back on the Weight Watchers Wagon.)

The food was nice but was secondary compared to the fact he TALKED to us. It's easy, in a big corporation, to feel like you're a tiny mouse hiding in the corner of a gigantic building. There are so many levels of management; there are so many people. It's easy to get lost in the shuffle and feel you're not important; that your work isn't valued; that you have nothing to contribute.

This isn't anyone's fault but generally I feel like I'm hiding my light under a bushel basket. In the past I have worked for many small, independent newspapers where everyone helped do everything. There were no lines between editorial, or production, or sales, or circulation. I was a reporter/photographer most of the week; on Monday morning I was a darkroom technician; on Monday afternoon I was a graphic artist; and on Tuesday morning I had a paper route. On Wednesdays we had staff meetings where everyone got together to plan the next issue. We threw ideas out there; we got excited – it was fun! And we produced award-winning newspapers. Personally I won several newspaper association awards in writing and design categories. (There was no award for delivering papers – but there should be!)

Things are different in a big company. Sure, each of the departments have meetings but rarely does everybody in an office get together in the same room and hash out ideas. I understand that's hard to do but, honestly, you miss out on a lot of ideas when you don't involve everyone. You also risk dampening the enthusiasm of people who want to contribute but don't feel they're part of the team.

Our VP knows this. He knows that the simple act of talking with everyone brings out their best. And isn't that what every company man wants? Excited, enthusiastic employees who love their jobs?

I'm certainly loving mine.

Now excuse me – I've gotta get my butt moving or I'm gonna be late for work.

Thank god it's Monday

You ever have one of those weekends that is so busy that Monday seems like a holiday?

Yup, I'm looking forward to sitting on my butt all day staring at a computer screen. No lifting heavy boats or outboard motors or canoes. No cleaning the house. No walking around the fair. No riding my bike up big hills. No writing another 1,100 words on my novel. No laundry, no dishes, no grocery shopping .... you get the picture.

It was a great weekend, truly, and the weather was spectacular here.

We were out for a bike ride along the riverbank and we came up to this old church or schoolhouse that is now someone's home, and it is the most adorable place you could imagine living in: bell still intact, brown wood siding, original windows, shiny red tin roof, gorgeous gardens, all overlooking the river. So we came up to this special little house, a house hobbits might live in, and there, transcendent in the sunshine, was a sugar maple with its ruby red autumn coat, waving slightly in the breeze, with the red roof of the schoolhouse as a brilliant backdrop. My breath actually caught in my throat for a moment and I thought, I love this time of year.

Later, Dave and Sam and I were sucking back a cold pop after our ride and we were talking about all the reasons we love fall: pumpkin pie, crisp fresh air, no blackflies or mosquitoes, and fabulous scenery. Sam says, "I've got one more reason."

"What?"

"Fall is when the best video games come out."

Oh yeah.

How could I possibly forget that?

*shaking my head*

For his birthday Sam's father pre-ordered the new Gears of War 3 videogame. Sam's been counting down the days until it's delivered – I guess the game's website has a countdown that measures the Big Event in minutes and even seconds. All weekend long Sam was bouncing off the walls about Gears of War because TODAY IS THE BIG DAY.

It's like Christmas around here, only I didn't have to cook a turkey or wrap any presents. The other night Sam got up in the middle of the night and started to microwave milk for himself – obviously so excited about the game that he couldn't sleep. I fixed his milk for him and sent him back to bed, only to hear him get up a half an hour later. Dave got up to see what he was doing and he was just standing in the middle of the living room, in the dark, in his underwear, just standing there. Dave, being the loving, doting stepfather that he is, said something gentle like, "What in HELL are you doing? Get your ass back to bed!"

And so the weekend went.

Thank god it's Monday.

If I get run over by a truck, just remember I love you

I didn't have time for my exercise bike this morning so I decided, just now, to ride my real bicycle to work.
Man I get some crazy ideas sometimes.
I'm not nervous about the distance – it's only a six minute drive – but I am worried about the traffic on the highway.
So, in case I get schmucked, I just want to say "I love you" to my kids and my husband and my mom and all my family and friends.
And "screw you" to the idjit who ran me over.
Ciao!

Diet Tip#1: Be Prepared

That there was last Tuesday's lunch.

And that huge pile of food on the counter doesn't even include the fat-free salad dressing, two apples and a banana I threw in the bag when I was ready to go.

Well no, it was my lunch and my dinner because on Tuesdays I work late. So to prevent my ravenous self from raiding Crunchie bars from the vending machine, I packed two meals. Truly, being prepared is the biggest thing you do can do to lose weight.

Oh, but it's a gawdawful amount of work. Peeling, chopping, boiling, rinse, repeat.

I feel like I'm running a diner.

Take this morning, for example. I boiled a chicken breast for lunch and an egg for breakfast. I washed and chopped strawberries, which I added to a bowl of Fibre 1 bran cereal and then added non-fat, no-sugar yogurt. (Delish, by the way.) Then I chopped half a head of lettuce, a couple of carrots and the chicken. I peeled the egg, and ate it, then grabbed a pita from the freezer. I packed the chicken separate from the salad so the lettuce wouldn't wilt, threw it all in a bag and added a banana and an apple.

It's a lot of work! But it's SO worth it – I have a healthy, well-balanced breakfast and lunch, with fruit to nosh on for snacks, and I feel full and satisfied and totally immune to the charms of the vending machine.
Part of my problem before is I never ate breakfast and never made time to pack a lunch so it was a regular thing to go out and grab some kind of greasy fast food.

You're probably also thinking, holy mother of all that is hungry, is she EVER eating a lot!

Yeah! I am! But more on that later. For now, be like the Girl Guides: Be Prepared!

Oh! And I was down another two and a half pounds this week, for a grand total of 21and a half since the beginning of August.

I. Feel. Fabulous.

If I get shit at work today I'll know the boss reads my blog

So. Imagine me as I Love Lucy and you'll get general gist of what I'm about to tell you.

It was a dark and stormy night... hell no, it was a dark and stormy day at the office. Busier than a one-armed paper hanger. Busier than a two-peckered rooster in a henhouse. Suddenly, the work stopped. I had a 10 minute hiatus while other people got their shit together. Being the conscientious employee that I am, I decided to take my lunch dishes to the kitchen. There, before my helpful eyes, was a loaded dishwasher waiting to be run. I added my dishes to the dirty fray and then looked under the sink for some dishwasher soap. There was a teeny, tiny, itty, bitty couple of granules in the bottom of the box.

Feck, I said to myself. It's just like home when someone leaves a mouthful in the bottom of the milk pitcher.

Oh well, sez I, as I dumped the remaining bits in the soap dispenser. Realizing there wasn't enough soap in there to clean a missionary's mouth, I decided to add a bit of Palmolive dish soap to the mix. You know, the stuff you normally put in a sink. There still didn't seem to be enough so I squirted it generously around the bottom rack, and then gave the top rack a squirt for good measure. I closed the dishwasher door and started it up and, as I walked back to my desk, a swing in my step and a halo over my head, I thought, what a good employee am I.

Still with nothing to do momentarily, I struck up a computer chat conversation with my pal Sarah, who works in a different office than me, and she was telling me about an appointment she had when I got an e-mail from the office manager. It didn't have a subject line but it was addressed to everybody in the building. It was a one-sentence message.

It said: "WHO RAN THE DISHWASHER THIS AFTERNOON?"

Ruh-row.

The unmistakeable smell of dish soap wafted all the way from the kitchen to the back of the building where I sat, red-faced and panicked.

I interrupted whatever the hell it was Sarah was saying and started typing.

C: I just got an e-mail and it said, 'WHO RAN THE DISHWASHER THIS AFTERNOON?' From the office manager! And it was me! I put Palmolive dish soap in it and now I think it's exploded with soap suds!

S: BAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

C: I can smell the soap! I think there's a big mess in there. What should I DO?

S: My friend did that once and there were bubbles all over the place, I mean it exploded with bubbles. Don't tell them it was you!

C: BAHAHAHAHAHAHA!! OMG, don't tell them?

S: NO, don't tell them! LOL!!!

C: People are talking about it. Someone just walked by and was complaining about the soap mess in the sink. "All we can figure is some dumbass put Palmolive in the dishwasher and let it run."

S: BUAHAHAHAHAHAHA! I'm starting to snort.

C: I know! So am I! I'm, like, almost wheezing and my face is all red.

S: BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

C: I know! ROFL! If someone asks me why I'm laughing, I'm dead meat.

S: Don't tell!

C: OMG, I won't. I'll be in such shit. I was just trying to help. And I put extra Palmolive in so it would do a better job.

S: Extra? BUAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!

C: This reminds me of the time when I joined a gym and there was a jacuzzi and there was a sign that said NO BUBBLE BATH ALLOWED. So I just put a little tiny amount of bubble bath in there. And there was freaking bubbles EVERYWHERE. They were TAKING OVER. I ran out of there so fast!

S: BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA...  snorting! I'm snorting here! Sounds like you really learned your lesson!

C: There was no sign saying don't put Palmolive in the dishwasher. Who knew? I didn't know. OMG, everybody's talking about the smell. There's bubbles floating around in the production room. I'm gonna pee myself, I swear I'm gonna pee my pants.

S: BUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

And so it went.  I was laughing just like this:



Oh feck, I hope the boss doesn't read my blog...

I Feel Pretty

I feel pretty! I do, I do, as long as I don't look in the mirror I am Natalie Wood, goddess of dark hair and liquid eyes.

I feel witty, I make you laugh, oh yes, you may not want to, but look at you smiling, you cannot help but laugh. Look at me spill coffee on my white-shirted self, hear me make spitfire humour, with spit, even. Oh so witty!

And gay, no, not so much, but happy, yes, especially with my gay friends. All happy are we! All gay, almost, like mauve bonnets at an orange juice convention. Anita, is that youuuuuu? Honey, you've aged!

I adore I Feel Pretty, could listen to it all day, like today, when I did, in fact, and finally posted Natalie Wood as my chat icon because we look so much alike. When she was alive, I mean. And when I was young, like 12. Like that. Who's that pretty girl in that mirror there? Who can that attractive girl be? Is it me? Is it Natalie? Is it Memorex?

Such a pretty face, such a pretty smile, such a pretty I forget, such a pretty MEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

I feel charming, also.

It's actually alarming how charming I feel. (And so pretty... did I mention pretty? Cause I feel pretty and witty and GAY! Anita! You again? Piss off.)

Work is so quiet. So boring. I hear Dave over in his office snoring. Lynda is saying, "What? What?" because she thinks Dave is saying something to her. Karen is stretching and yawning, one of those loud yawns that scare the shit out of me. Jesus, Karen, how many pairs of clean underwear do I need to bring in for a day?

The music in my ear swells - oh wait, it's ear wax - and I feel pretty, OH SO PRETTY, and there's Jason, grabbing Lisa's wedding tiara and plunking it on his own gell-haired head and he's SINGING in a tremulous falsetto, swirling around the production floor in his peach jumper, and suddenly Leah jumps up and tries to grab the tiara because she's an actress and needs to be in the spotlight. "I WANNA BE MARIA," she squeals, but Jason dips and evades her, all in time with the music. The rest of us are overcome with the need to dance so Karen and Lynda pull on their leg warmers and try to be Jennifer Beal (s?) but then Terri smacks them and says, "WRONG MOVIE, MORONS." And she says, "Jennifer Lopez is a fake," only because it pisses me off. But I Feel Pretty, so who gives a shit? Then Cathy B. staggers to her feet and we think she's doing the Funky Chicken but it's only her bad back. Angie, Gail and Marg join in, swanking things up like the background girls in the bridal shop, singing "Miss America, speak! Speak!" while Marianne shrieks, "GILLIGAN!" and we sweep around the room while the music swells and we all develop Puerto Rican-Canadian accents. (Think of Spanish Rice slathered in maple syrup.) The ad reps come in, their mouths like trout, and they sing, "See those pretty girls in the production room!" and Sarah comes and takes our photos and puts them on the front page of the newspaper and they sell more papers than ever, in the history of newspapers, and it's all because I feel pretty.

Hey, I said I FELT pretty. Didn't say I was... way to rain on the parade, buster. Who let this guy in, anyway? HEY! Gimme back that tiara! HEY! DON'T I KNOW YOU????