Political Incorrectness

Read the following passage and see if you can tell me what's wrong with it.

Smith: "Look who's in."

Lawler: "Hamed Haddadi. Where's he from?"

Smith: "He's the first Iranian to play in the NBA."

Lawler: "There aren't any Iranian players in the NBA?"

Smith: "He's the only one."

Lawler: "He's from Iran?"

Smith: "I guess so."

Lawler: "That Iran?"

Smith: "Yes."

Lawler: "The real Iran?"

Smith: "Yes."

Lawler: "Wow. Haddadi that's H-A-D-D-A-D-I."

Smith: "You're sure it's not Borat's older brother?"

Smith: "If they ever make a movie about Haddadi, I'm going to get Sacha Baron Cohen to play the part."

Lawler: "Here's Haddadi. Nice little back-door pass. I guess those Iranians can pass the ball."

Smith: "Especially the post players.

Lawler: "I don't know about their guards."

Now read it again and where it says Iranian pronounce it "Eye-ranian." Go ahead. I'll wait. Have you found the offensive remark? Me neither. But a fan watching a Clipper's broadcast last week did and got Smith and Lawler suspended for a game because of it. You read that right: this innocent little dialogue caused Smith and Lawler to lose their jobs for a day. But who are these unfiltered, insensitive, and downright cruel guys?

Ralph Lawler is a 71 year old play-by-play announcer who has been calling Clipper's games for the past 31 seasons. As for Ralph Smith, he's been doing color commentary for the past 12 seasons. If you don't know, the Clippers are arguably the worst franchise in professional sports. No, scratch that. They are the worst franchise in professional sports and there is not a close second. Their combined 43 years of calling games for this atrocious team should give Lawler and Smith ample leeway. But Fox did not see it that way.

Instead, Fox took a phone call from one fan - ONE FAN - who deemed their use of "Eye-ranian" to be offensive and suspended these guys for one game. Huh? As we say in the land of Twitter "WTF?"

Now, a one game suspension does not seem like a big deal. But that's not the point. When is this political correctness b.s. ever going to end? Instead of Christmas Parties, we go to Holiday Gatherings. Instead of people being short, they are "vertically challenged." And instead of dumb, we say "mentally deficient." Even I get caught up in the insanity.

Last week, I was watching a UFC match. Being a novice UFC viewer, I had no clue who either fighter was. When my buddy said "Anderson Silva is nasty," I had no idea who he was talking about. Anderson Silva is black and his opponent was white. To clarify, I said, "is he the guy on the left?" My buddy looked at me like I was an idiot and said, "Yeah, the black guy."

This debate has waged on for decades and some would say political correctness has been beneficial by eliminating some rather nasty words from our vernacular. No longer do we say "colored" people (although I find it funny that we label all black people as "African-American." As my Haitian friend says, "I've never even been to Africa.") And it has helped us get a little smarter. We are referring to Indians as Native Americans because, let's face it, unless you are from India, you are not an Indian. But I think things are going a bit too far.

As I was reading about what happened to Smith and Lawler, I kept thinking about Gaylord Focker in "Meet the Parents." He's being interrogated for saying "bomb" on an airplane until he finally loses it and screams, "bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb bomb bomb bomb bomb bomb!"

Or did he mean to say "man-made destructive device?"

Maturity: The Elusive Gene

I was watching "Family Guy" the other day when Peter Griffin walked into a room and said "I want to thank you all for coming." With no hesitation, Quagmire yelled out "Oh yeah!" I burst out in uncontrollable laughter. There were three other people in the room and only I got the joke. How sad that Quagmire - a cartoon character on a very juvenile TV show - has the same maturity level as me. But it doesn't stop there.

I chuckle when a license plate in front of me has a 69 in it. I hold back tears of laughter when football announcers say "He went deep!" or "he got hit from behind!" When a baseball player gets jammed inside and the announcer says "he fisted it" I nearly fall off the couch. When my girlfriend asks if I can put a load in the washer, I give her my best Beavis and Butthead; "yeah, yeah...you said load."

And it gets worse. Last week, I grabbed a Magic Hat Number 9, the beer with catchy phrases on their bottle caps, and got these pearls of wisdom: "I love a happy ending." Giggidy.

In December, I will turn 39. Yes, one magical year before the big 4-0. Will my maturity level ever creep up to my age? Probably not. I see myself in a nursing home. I'm 85, wearing diapers, and a buddy of mine is doing a crossword puzzle. Rather innocuously, he says, "Boy, this is hard."

And without hesitation, I answer "You wish!"

Pardon Me.....

"Pardon me if my feet stink" is no way to begin before taking off your shoes.

If you have to open with that, all others in the enclosed room with no windows or ventilation now realize they are in trouble. You obviously have inside information that the recipients in the room are not aware of. Either you are not 100% sure if your feet stink but think there is a high possibility or you KNOW your feet stink yet you are going to take your shoes off anyway.

Regardless it leaves the rest of the folks unable to do a thing. They do not want to pardon you if your feet stink in fact they probably would appreciate it if you did not remove your shoes. "Pardon me if my feet stink" does not allow for any option and you should just say "Listen, my feet stink and that is just the deal and I am taking my shoes off anyway."

One can ponder occasions when a pardon could be given for stinky feet but not many come to mind. In fact I can only think of one: At the beach, with the exfoliating sand and surf, salt air and lots of wide open space. So, if you have to open with "Pardon me if my feet stink" before removing your shoes and you are not at the beach with lots of wide open space the shoes stay on.

Look the part

When I entered my 40s, I made the important decision that I should not leave the house without taking certain measures that would preserve the illusion that I'm not actually in my 40s.

1. Wear makeup – especially, but not exclusively, eye makeup and concealer.
2. Do not wear "comfy" clothes outside the house, including, but not limited to, pajamas, pajama-like outfits, slippers, sweatpants, over-sized t-shirts and/or sweatshirts.
3. When venturing out, do not wear clothes that don't fit, including, but not limited to, anything spandex (even if it's workout gear), anything that creates a muffin-top effect, anything that creates the uni-boob.
4. Avoid hats unless you're taking a run and it goes with the outfit or you're at a sporting event.

When I entered my unemployed state, I confirmed the aforementioned choices and, in fact, added some really important stuff to the list.

1. Shower daily.
2. Wash your hair more than once a week.
3. Maintain your previous list.

Well, clearly I've reached new lows in the past few weeks. And by new lows, I mean I've been seen – in public – ignoring several rules simultaneously. And I've been doing it without so much as a flinch of recognition that I'm officially looking the part of someone who has been unemployed for the past 8 months and not enjoying it. It's definitely not a good sign when I can't remember my last shower or the last time I lathered up some nice-smelling shampoo, or where I put my mascara. One day last week, I ran into a former male colleague at the supermarket wearing (1) jeans that didn't fit, (2) an old Red Sox t-shirt that belonged to my husband who, by the way, is 6'2" and about 250 pounds while I, on the other hand, have to stand on a chair to reach 5 feet, (3) no make-up, and (4) flat hair. Rather than hide out in the frozen foods, which is the path I should have taken, I took the road less traveled and stood unashamed in the tuna aisle to carry on a conversation for 20 minutes. So, either I had no idea the hideous display that was me in aisle 5, or I've officially abandoned all hope. Whatever the situation, from the inside looking in, I think I need an intervention.

Life Behind the Wall: Part Three

Communication!!

There are so many different ways to communicate: telephone, telegraph, email, texting, blogging, tweeting, facebook, yelling, facial expressions, smoke signals, Morse code, non-verbal, verbal, dogeatdog cards, notes, mail, carrier pigeon, the list is endless.

The one mode of communication that is untapped and mostly unknown is

TOILET TELEPHONING!! Yes, you read that correctly, TOILET TELEPHONING!! If you yell into the toilet with or without a toilet paper roll aide (if you put together empty toilet paper rolls you can create a tube to extend out of the toilet....this helps to keep your face directly away from the bowl..but speak quickly as it wicks the water to your face) you can communicate with folks "behind the wall" a few floors down.

To pick up the receiver aka: start the conversation, simply tap on the toilet to alert the lucky recipient. Once connected, speak loudly into the bowl. When your communication is complete (or when the keeper of the "mates" yells at you to stop) say goodbye and hang up....yes, you guessed it FLUSH!!

Who knew the toilet could be so multi-functional?? Who thinks of these things? What would possess one to think "if I stick my head in the toilet" maybe I can communicate with others? Who tried it first and with all the trial and error setting up the system, how many stuck there head in the bowl a little to far? :)

If only they would use their powers for good instead of evil!!

Off the wagon

The Wellness Wagon, that is. Not surprisingly, I strayed from my superb eating patterns and exercise regimen when I started my annual summer vacation a few weeks ago. I had high hopes for myself, as I always do, which means I set myself up for failure before I even landed in P-Town. I should have had no expectations so if I did anything remotely related to eating well or exercising, it would have been something to celebrate. Instead, I packed loads of workout garb, my yoga mat, a medicine ball, exercise bands, a Yoga DVD, my iPod, and two pairs of sneakers. Prior to my vacation, I was running 3-5 miles PER DAY. On my two-week vacation, I ran a paltry 2 miles, and walked a total of maybe 5 miles. Of course, my "walks" were toward breakfast or a snack, so I'm guessing that if you're snarfing French toast or a chocolate chip muffin after a leisurely 1.5-mile walk where you only broke a sweat because it was hot out, you've canceled out any potential benefit the aforementioned exercise might have provided. Okay, so I avoided exercise while on vacation. But in my defense, running on the beach is really hard. And running on the two-lane highway near our cottage is life-threatening. So I may be a bit chubbier than when I left for my trip, but at least I'm alive.

On a positive note, I managed to stick to good food for the first week. Unfortunately by the time the second week rolled around, I was grabbing Oreos and Chip Ahoys like there was no tomorrow and washing them down with Margaritas. I've been home for almost a week and finally had the courage to stand on the scale yesterday. I've been hiding the damage under big tees since I came home, so it's not like I was unprepared for the number, but it's such a disappointment that it takes a month or more to drop a measly 5 pounds and a tiny vacation on the Cape to bring it all back in its squishy glory.

Inadequacy is the new black

I don't often wallow in self-pity, and frankly, I wasn't feeling particularly wallow-y when I woke up this morning. Admittedly, there are times in my unemployed life when I'm stricken with panic attacks about my future and if I really have any skills at all or if I've been faking it all these years, but for the most part, they're fleeting moments. I'm usually able to convince myself that this is just an elongated blip in the road. That is, until this morning when I decided to pick up my alma mater's magazine. I always start off with the class notes to see if any of my friends have submitted any exciting news and then I'll skim for whatever seems interesting. In my current (somewhat fragile) condition, I should remember, however, that Wellesley College alums who make the magazine are generally not sitting around managing loads of laundry and summer-time activities with a 7-year-old. That doesn't mean there aren't Wellesley grads who are home with their kids and happy to be doing it, it just means they're not the cover story in our magazine. The cover story this time around is called, "Service & Sacrifice: Wellesley Women in the War Zone." Okay, seriously, how can I even hold a candle to women in the armed forces? How can I complain about my silly life when these women are on the battlefield? Fine, I'll compare myself to the other women in the magazine that I can "relate" to...like Madeleine Albright. See what I mean? Just when I began contemplating whether or not the glossy cover would catch fire, I came across an excerpt from one of the graduation speeches given by Kimberly Dozier, class of '87. She's a CBS News Correspondent who was severely injured in a roadside bombing in Baghdad in 2006 and nearly lost both her legs. Know what she had to say? She said, "…every time I ran into a wall, I had two choices on how to face it – hope or fear. You don't always choose what happens to you – or where you end up. But you can choose how you respond to it – and why you do what you do." That snapped me out of my self-pity party pretty quickly. How about you?

It's been one long day

The summer, that is. So far, all the rain in Boston combined with the daily challenge of entertaining a 7-year-old while simultaneously (1) pretending to look for a job, (2) paying attention to the card company, (3) and using exercise as a procrastination technique, I find that every day just blurs into the next, and not always in a good way. I've always considered myself a relatively calm person, however, I've been having these out-of-body experiences lately where I see myself starting to lose it, recognize the opportunity to stop the downward spiral, ignore that opportunity, and subsequently flail toward the Dark Side. Most of the time it's when my son decides it's in his best interest to test my limits by either mouthing off to me, demanding that I bring him something, insisting that I clean up his crap, or all of the above. I'm pretty sure he's under the impression that he won't suffer any consequences that will actually impact him in a negative way, so why not see what he can away with. I'm willing to admit my shortcomings as a parent and I often see how years of ineffective disciplinary tactics are now biting me in the butt, however, in my defense, the kid really knows how to wear me down. Anyway, I just thought I'd state, for the record, that I finally hit the wall yesterday afternoon and stooped to a new low. Granted, it was an effective low, but a low nonetheless: Soap in the mouth. It's one thing to mouth off at me, it's another thing to mouth off at me using my own (slightly profane) words. That's where I draw the line and pour on the liquid detergent. I almost had to wrestle him to the ground to get the job done, but fortunately I decided to employ a much more effective tool: the Daddy Threat. My son knows that more often than not, my threats are empty (until yesterday), but Daddy never fails on the follow through and that was enough for compliance. I'm not proud of myself...okay, I am a little proud of myself. Is that wrong?

Dog(eat)dog cards debuts at the National Stationery Show!

Well, May was an exciting month for us. Denise, Paul, and I spent 5 nights, 6 days in New York for the National Stationery Show to launch our company to the stationery universe. We crammed my Honda with our booth stuff, plugged in our Playlist of '70s & '80s tunes and hit the road. The three of us haven't traveled together since the late '80s, so needless to say, we were all curious to see how it was going to go, especially staying in one hotel room! I'm happy to report, we survived with only a few minor incidents. I won't talk about how my brother left the car lights on while we spent three hours setting up the booth on Friday afternoon and had to call AAA to get a jump and he pretended for at least 20 minutes that he had no idea why the battery was dead. I'd hate to throw him under the bus, so I won't mention it. And then, there was the time later (much later) that night when Paul and I were in the bathroom blowing up the Aerobed thinking we were quietly whispering/laughing while Denise was asleep because she'd been awake for 4 million hours after her night shift when she was really awake pretending to be asleep so we wouldn't get louder. That would be embarrassing, so I'll leave that part out. What I will talk about, however, is how pumped we are that we actually had 5 sales at the show! I'll also mention that people were literally belly-laughing in our booth as they were reading the cards on the walls, which means there are people in the world (other than our mother) who think our cards are funny. It was a great show and we're so excited to keep going and build on what we've started. Check out our new cards and let us know what you think!