These Aren't Your Mother's Large Print Books! (But they ARE her Genes)

Chuckle #384 | November 24th 2009
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Preschoolers aren’t ashamed to read Large Print Books. Large print isn’t humiliating when you’re 5 because all your friends are also reading Dr. Seuss in 28 point type. It’s different for us adults when we discover that our eyesight is beginning to fail before we’re even pushing 60.

Menus, cell phone manuals, the teensy recycling numbers on the bottom of plastic containers…all this has, of late, become a challenge. Add a “dim light” factor and I might as well be legally blind. I often need to ask for help from younger eyes. (Luckily, I was prescient enough to have kids.) My husband’s failing eyesight is about three years ahead of mine, and together we make quite the embarrassing pair. You should see us on “date night”. And no, I will NOT bring a flashlight and magnifying glass to a restaurant. Not yet anyway. I have my pride.

Thanks to “pride”, I spent a recent weekend trying to hide the fact that I was reading a Large Print book. This was difficult, since anyone within 10 yards of me could read along without too much effort. It also had the words “LARGE PRINT!” splashed all over the cover in...wouldn’t you know it...REALLY BIG text.

Why the large print book you ask? I was desperate for a distraction. We were on an in-law visit and I had nothing to read. In survival situations like this, people do unexpected, uncharacteristic things. Like read large print books, feign illness, go out for coffee a lot, and eat their pets. Ever watch “Lost”? This Danielle Steele Novelette was the only book available, and the only thing standing between me, my in-law’s couch, and the inevitable Lifetime Television Movie of the Week. I had no choice.

Did you know that all 300 titles by Danielle Steele are available in large print? That says something. I think she may have written this one in her sleep after passing out over a bottle of Jack. Writers who commit such literary crimes should not go unpunished. (And the editors who put them into print should be charged as accessories.)

ROMANCE dominates the “optimized alternative format market” (aka Large Print) because lovelorn ladies of a certain age in bifocals are the primary consumers. Apparently the farsighted are suckers for LOVE. On a positive note, (now that I’ve managed to offend sappy romantics, mother-in-laws AND the visually challenged, let me just say that Large Print isn’t so bad. While the fear of being caught in possession of a large print book can still send me down a rabbit hole (Alice’s will do), there are some benefits. I did not have to hold the book up under my chin to read it, nor did I get nauseous reading in the car. I also predict fewer wrinkles because I did not need to squint so much. (The downside is that my mind may turn to mush because of the limited titles available.)

Just for the sake of mental stimulation (and vanity) I’ll think I’ll stick with regular print for as long as I can. But when my time comes, I’ll go straight to the KINDLE. I’m just beginning to understand the popularity of this new device. It’s not simply that it is a cool new technology; it’s that baby boomers can SET THE FONT SIZE to anything they want. No more embarrassing large print books, no more embarrassing authors. The visually challenged can now read ANY BOOK they darn well please. So there, Random House.

And if the eyesight gets really bad, there’s always audio books. Just crank up the earphone volume as your hearing fails. No one will ever need to know that BOTH the eyes AND the ears are going…

Do you Kindle? Or do you own 20 pairs of perpetually misplaced reading glasses?
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21st Century Euphemisms: A Guide for the Verbally Challenged

Chuckle #383 | November 18, 2009
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Ever been embarrassed because you THOUGHT you were having a pleasant conversation about FALL BULBS, but it turns out that everyone else was talking about “S” “E” “X”? Join the club. For those of us who don't subconciously channel William Safire, language can be obtuse. There are hidden meanings everywhere you look…music, the arts, sports, even preschool. Anything you say can be misinterpreted. Watch your words or you might find yourself facing a room full of people that you've unwittingly SHOCKED into silence. And it doesn't take much these days to get yourself blackballed by the grannies who control entree into the garden club.

Like whatever happened to the word “STICK”? As far as I can tell, any phrase that includes the word “STICK” must be viewed as a possible euphemism for You Know What. The “WHAT” being something I won’t refer to euphemistically because using any of the “euphemisms” I know would be far worse than simply calling this particular anatomical spade, A SPADE. Lost? Read on.

For example, a friend just informed me that a “game controller” can no longer be called a JOYSTICK because no teenage boy EVER wants to hear that word come out of his mother’s mouth, no matter WHAT the context. But we moms first learned this word back in the 80s when video games were new, and we lacked the guile to understand the word’s bomber pilot origins. In complete innocence - I SWEAR, we think nothing of repeating the word “joystick” over and over, as our sons’ faces turn red. Luckily for boys, Dads are endowed with better sense.

Back in the eighties, I became a gas station pump monkey to earn money for college. When someone wanted their oil checked, I had to first locate their DIPSTICK, which wasn’t always easy in some of those old muscle cars. As an impressionable young girl, I didn’t know that repeating the word “dipstick” would endlessly amuse a male population perfectly capable of checking its own oil. I’m not sure if it was my worldly vocabulary or the opportunity to have a 19 year old girl inside their hood that made every “dipstick” in town want to get his oil checked during my shift. Euphemistically speaking of course…

To top it all off, I now have to deal with Lady Gaga’s DISCO STICK which elicits giggles from the back seat every time I sing along. So I’m guessing that we’ve got another inappropriate EUPHEMISM on our hands. And yet ANOTHER song that needs to be purchased as a “clean” version. Though I’m not sure that the cleaning program is sophisticated enough to remove this particular idiomatic “verbum non gratum.” And while we are on the subject of lyrics, “Shawty” is ok, it just means hot girl, or girlfriend, and NOT all the other stuff I THOUGHT it meant. So sing along without fear. (At least for now. Definitions seem to devolve in the music world.)

From now on, to be safe, I’m simply going to stop saying “STICK.” So I need a synonym that will help me avoid any perception of being inappropriately “euphemistic.” Especially around minors and garden club grannies. Maybe I could substitute “branch” or “twig”…or given the popularity of Harry Potter, “WAND.” (Which I now see would yield, among other things, the unfortunate, “dip wand.”) Or maybe, I should just quit while I’m ahead.

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Did That Cheese Just Move? The True Meaning of "Expiration Date"

CHUCKLE #382 | November 11, 2009
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I’ve always believed that expiration dates are more like edibility GUIDELINES, not deadlines. They are subject to personal interpretation. Should you eat that 2-month old, expired yogurt? Look for other clues. If there is visible mold and a powerful stench, something is amiss. If you rub it on your face and you get a rash, DON’T put it in your mouth. Test it first on your dog and you’ll have your answer in a couple hours. If it can WALK, it is definitely past its prime. (Although there seems to be some cultural disagreement on this. In Casu Marzu – a delicacy also known as Maggot Cheese – the live maggots can jump up to 15 feet as they try to avoid being eaten by crazy Italian people.) Right. Like I said, if it can WALK, throw it out.

It may be SAFE to consume a food that doesn’t kill your dog, but how will it TASTE? That depends entirely on how sneaky and creative you are. If a slightly “offending,” marginally edible food can be disguised by pouring another complimentary food on top, like spaghetti sauce, BRAVO. You just put another gourmet meal on the table at no cost*. (*Actual savings may vary depending on cost of over-the-counter gastric treatments and physician co-pays.) To reduce the risk of negative side effects, always prepare with high heat.

Freezing food will prevent it from going bad. Like the vat of stuffed cabbage currently in cryogenic stasis in my freezer. This cabbage smelled vaguely of canned dog food the FIRST time I served it, (hence the vast amount “leftover.”) No one in my family will ever eat this cabbage again, but I froze it anyway. Next month I will attempt to serve it to visiting grandparents whose taste buds have died. I need to stop being so compulsive about preserving marginal leftovers. Freezers are only so big. Any extra space should be used to chill the Stoli and the Limoncello, NOT the dodgy cabbage.

Q & A - Things I’ve Learned Over the Years about Food

1) You CAN rinse the slime off the smoked turkey. This effectively removes any funny taste.

2) Ham lasts longer than any sandwich meat, stock up.

3) Cutting the “BAD” areas off questionable foods renders them edible ONLY if your kids do not see you doing it.

4) Sour milk cannot be repurposed. Once it goes, it’s gone…

5) Salad-in-a-Bag rots spontaneously upon contact with oxygen. If you buy it you must eat if for breakfast, lunch and dinner until it is gone. Otherwise you WILL end up throwing it away.

6) Eating questionable food increases your resistance to other bad bacteria – which is unproven but MUST be true because our mothers have always told us that “what doesn’t kill us will make us stronger.” Of course, my mother learned that from her mother, who survived the Irish potato famine by eating the Irish equivalent of Casu Marzu.

7) Botulism however, CAN kill you. Do not mess around with “iffy” canned food you found buried in your back yard, even if it is creamed corn.

8) In NJ, milk can be sold up to the date “Stamped on Carton”. In NYC milk may be sold until midnight of the previous day. Why is that so hard for me to understand? What does it MEAN?

9) Pharmaceutical companies concede that even 10 years after the "expiration date," most over-the-counter pain killers retain much of their original potency. So I also pretty much ignore expiration dates on stuff like Tylenol. If it doesn’t have any actual MEDICAL benefit, I figure I’ll still get a PLACEBO effect.

What’s in your fridge? Anything slimy, smelly, or WALKING? How is the dog?

My Love-Hate Relationship with my Minivan, a Bible Story

CHUCKLE #381 | November 4th, 2009
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Noah had his ARK, we moms have our MINIVANS. I wonder if Noah's relationship with his ARK was as complicated as my feelings are for my van? Probably more so. He had to build that thing, I only had to choose my "family tanker" off the lot. The Ark was the ultimate achievement in biblical transport, it could hold a "boat" load of animals and gear. But from the illustrations I've seen, it was no yacht. Noah could not have possibly felt "COOL" cruising the floodwaters in that giant butted boat.


There are TWO things they don't warn you about when you get pregnant, 1) pain of childbirth, 2) that you'll soon be driving an ugly, big-butted car. I got my first minivan after we realized that three car seats do not safely fit into a Ford Explorer. Seemed like a good trade-off at the time, comfort and sanity for what was left of my COOLNESS. That's what parenting is all about, isn't it, sacrifice? I was happy with my van until my kids made it smell. (Did it smell as bad as the ARK? Some days I think it did.) After four years of "sacrifice" I couldn't wait to unload my van. I was turning 40, I wanted to be cool again. I wanted...a CROSSOVER SUV.


No Suburban for me. I don't like getting dirty looks from little old ladies. I also wanted to do better than 7 MPG. Since we don't play hockey, and we're not big skiers, we had options. We got an Acura MDX. Which was pretty cool back then for a SUV and perfectly adequate for about three years. Then the kids grew. I had not factored any kids growth tables into my "how long to lease" calulations. Nor did the kindly Acura salesman choose to point out that my children might grow. For the past year, I have been sitting in the third row seat (being the shortest in the family, and the one who is best able to squeeze into small spaces sans whining.) After my kids go to college, I may become a contortionist. In the meantime, we need a NEW CAR.


There are a LOT more crossover SUVS out there now with more comfortable back seats. But I am taking my cue directly from GOD and NOAH. And from my friends who LOVE (vs. hate) their minivans. Make it big, make everyone as comfortable as possible, and save the world. (Or in my case, my back and my sanity.) So I am now, with GREAT anticipation, awaiting the arrival of my second (and hopefully final) minivan. It's black. Black is cool. It's about as cool as a Toyota Sienna is going to get. And black is slimming. It may be an illusion, but my big butted car is going to appear svelte. Little old ladies won't give me a second glance when I park next to them.


NOAH should have painted the ARK black. I don't think God specified big AND ugly, just big. (Surely there were some tar pits around back then.) Noah COULD have been the COOL guy who saved the world, instead he goes down in biblical history looking like a Woodstock hippie with a homemade boat. (Who, nonetheless, inspired the modern "tan" minivan.) But back then, who knew? And even the car companies didn't come up with making minivans black until 2009! I'm guessing the women on the original minivan marketing teams were all stick thin and didn't EVER wear black for the purposes of butt slimmification. No, that's not a word, but it should be.


Love, hate...or some combination of the two...YOUR minivan?