SQUALK TALK

PILLOW SQUALK

I already know what I want for Christmas. I saw it in the Brookstone catalog. The manufacturers maintain this is NOT some lame novelty product, but a boon to mankind. I’m not so sure about womankind. It was this provocative headline that caught my eye:

                                           AT LONG LAST, A REMOTE CONTROL PILLOW

Someone finally had the brains to sew a TV remote inside a throw pillow. Brilliant! The people who wasted valuable time thinking up Windows 7 must be kicking themselves. Really, what man hasn’t spent 15 minutes looking for his clicker, then wondered why he couldn’t switch channels with something he never misplaces—like his can of beer.

Never again will you have to ask:  “Where’s the remote?” Instead you’ll be asking why there is mustard on the volume button.  One fan commented, “It looks like the regular pillow I cuddle with.” Okay, that is a little creepy, but I was still intrigued.

There are some safety warnings:  Like a minor possibility of being electrocuted if you drool on the thing.  The device shuts off after two hours of inactivity—not gonna happen because most men are persistent channel surfers.  However, falling asleep on the pillow is a pressing problem.  A few customers complained  that one minute they were watching a documentary about FDR on the History Channel and minutes later woke up to Snooki on Jersey Shore.

The people at Brookstone also claim that the item is a great conversation starter.

“Hey, Joe, is that pillow also a remote?”

“Yes, Tom, it is.”

“Please pass the cheese puffs.”

As I mentioned, the big benefit is that you will never again lose the remote. Of course, I came out of Kohl’s the other day and spent 20 minutes looking for my car, and I played golf Thursday and lost six clubs, so I’m not optimistic this is a surefire solution for me. Nevertheless, the designers state that the gadget is idiot proof. However, if you spent forty bucks for this contraption, it may already be too late.

The product website boasts the pillow can control 500 devices. I went around the house and I could only find six or eight devices in all our rooms. Maybe if I counted the bread box and our antique magazine rack, I could get that up to ten.  My electric razor and toothbrush are probably considered devices, but I wouldn’t want those things revving up in my bathroom unless I’m present to monitor the situation.

My wife wondered if she could start the dishwasher with the pillow, but I had to put my foot down. This kind of laziness is ruining our country, although it would be awesome to get Orville Redenbacher popping in the microwave right before the movie starts.

Mary Ellen and I decided not to wait for Christmas and ordered the pillow remote online. We don’t have the same tastes in television shows so we often end up having a little spat about what we should watch on our big screen TV.   Now that we have this new cushy gadget, it has added some spice and excitement to our marriage. Never underestimate the value of a good pillow fight.

TALKING HEADS

Mary Ellen and I were relaxing on our back deck and after swatting a few mosquitos, I said, “You know, sweetheart, we should look into screening in this area.”

“Yes, Dick, you’ve been saying that every year for the past 15 years.”

A few minutes later I mentioned how quickly the summer passes once July 4th weekend is over.

“I know, you say that every year around this time.”

I also remarked that the neighbors don’t grill out as often as we do. Apparently I had made this observation before.  Several  times.

Suddenly, I felt this great pressure on me. After thirty-one years, I didn’t have a single new thought to offer.  I had always taken great pride in my creativity, but clearly I was no longer snappy with the repartee. Several moments of uneasy silence followed. Mary Ellen finally spoke…

“When it gets this hot, I think about cutting my hair shorter.”

“Where have I heard that before?” I asked.

At that moment, we both realized we needed a way to jazz up our conversations. Mary Ellen had an idea: “I read this article in the doctor’s office, I think it was in Cosmo, that might offer a solution.”

I’ve seen some of those covers of Cosmopolitan and I was just praying that was where she saw it. Phooey, it was from Good Housekeeping. Mary Ellen said the writer recommended that longtime married couples should pretend they are going out on a first date. That would make for an exciting and potentially romantic evening.

It seemed like a silly idea at first, but I agreed it was worth a try. On Friday night I asked Mary Ellen out for the next evening. She was annoyed because I waited until the last minute, assuming she didn’t already have Saturday night plans.  To be really suave, I went outside the house Saturday night and rang the doorbell, like it was a real date. I thought that would make a big impression on her, but she’s no dummy and realized I had simply forgotten my keys.

We drove off in the car. “What shall we talk about tonight, Dick?”

“If this were a first date, we’d probably chat about movies we’ve each seen.”

“Okay, great idea.  I just saw Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris.”

“I saw that, too.”

“I know, Dick, we saw it together.”

“Gone to any good restaurants lately, Mary Ellen?”               

“No, my husband likes to go to the same places all the time.”

“Mary Ellen, you are not supposed to have a husband. This is a first date. What kind of a jerk do you think I am, going out with a married woman?  Let’s try travel. Have you ever seen the Pyramids?”

“We went last year. How could you forget?”

“I didn’t forget. I’m making conversation. That was the whole point of this.”

“Well, it’s getting too weird for me. I feel like I’m dating a man who’s lost his memory.

We tried everything that people would chat about when getting to know each other: music, religion, politics. Honestly, we didn’t hit it off, but there must have been something brewing on some level because despite a dismal first date, we both ended up back at my place.

Grand Vacation

Grand Vacation

The Wolfsies have returned from a weeklong vacation to the Grand Canyon. It’s the only place in America where you’re allowed to drag your kid to the precipice of one the world’s deepest chasms, but they put you in the slammer if you feed a squirrel.

Any aspirations our small family had about making the descent to the bottom were squashed when I went into a gift shop on the South Rim. I asked the clerk to recommend a book about this National Park. Hold onto your hat—actually, hold onto anything you can. The number one seller is: Over the Edge: Death in Grand Canyon. What a charming choice for fans of light summer reading.

The authors do not restrict their colorful travelogue to unscheduled plunges to the bottom. They want you to know that with a little bit of poor planning, you can also die of dehydration or starvation. Rattlesnake bites, driving off the edge and eating poisonous plants are more fun options to choose from.

Writers Myers and Ghiglieri want you to know how safe the Canyon is if you are careful, but the book seems oddly misplaced in the gift shop so close to, well, the edge. There aren’t pamphlets relating the history of scaldings on the counter of McDonald’s or brochures about whimsical power tool mishaps attached to your chain saw purchases. I’m glad they didn’t think of this unique marketing gimmick when the Pinto was hot (so to speak).

There are many entertaining chapters in the book: bear attacks, drownings, and rock slides, to name a few. So many ways to buy the farm and still enjoy the grandeur of nature. Maybe I’m an optimist but I look at it this way: only a few hundred deaths in six million years. That’s not a bad record.

You want to hear more, don’t you? In one touching chapter a man makes tea for his wife out of a deadly canyon flower and they both die within minutes. In another section, a woman tries to pet a mountain lion. There’s clearly a fine line between bad luck and stupidity. Then there’s the elderly couple who got lost in their 1996 Taurus on a back road. They were found dehydrated, but still alive. They had no water, but a week’s supply of Depends. I’d call that ironic.

The chapter on suicide makes it clear this really is the place to go if you have a flair for the dramatic. It is rumored that one guy who met his maker by driving off a cliff had complained at the gate that the entry fee was exorbitant and he would never come back again. No idle threat there.

Travelers from abroad love the Grand Canyon. Europeans winter in Arizona. Asians summer in the Canyon. Americans usually fall there. About 600 feet. That’s just an average, though; your actual plummet may vary.

The beauty of the Grand Canyon is overwhelming and we really did have a great time. When we left, I packed the trunk full of water and drove slowly along the winding roads, our GPS leading the way. I enjoyed that book, but I didn’t want to be in the second edition.

WEIGHTY DECISION

WEIGHTY DECISION!

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Mary Ellen casually mentioned to me the other night that I had a pathetic looking chest. While I suppose your better half is permitted to assess your upper half, I’d suggest not responding in kind. She thinks my body lacks definition, but I disagree. You can look it up in the dictionary under scrawny. Women are definitely more interested in men having muscles than a sense of humor. No female has never said: “I wish Matthew McConaughey would put his shirt back on and tell more jokes.”

I used to go to a gym to play racquetball, and I’d see men and women fine-tuning their physiques, yet I wasn’t inspired to fiddle with my own.  Never really interested in the pure pursuit of brute strength, I would watch weightlifters during their routine. They’d pick up a heavy thing, then they’d put it down again. Such indecision.

After this stinging critique of my body, I read in Prevention magazine that when you reach 45 years of age, you begin losing one percent of your bone density and muscle mass every year.  Old photos of me from high school show there was very little mass to start with, although some did roll in across my midsection in the early ’80s. Density? I asked Mary Ellen about that, but she said not to worry, that I’m as dense as I’ve ever been—and she’s not one to just toss out compliments.

I was embarrassed into starting a moderate body- building regimen. I don’t go to the gym to work out, however.  I do everything at home, in the reclining position, while watching cable news in the evening. Why didn’t I think of this 15 years ago? I still wouldn’t like Sean Hannity, but at least I’d be buff enough to throw king-size pillows at the TV from a prone position. Some of my other favorite moves are curls, extensions and squats. There are two techniques I don’t perform: abductions and snatches. I don’t need any more legal trouble after getting caught walking out of Dick’s Sporting Goods with a set of free weights. Hey, that’s what the sign said.

I'm making progress. Thursday I ''bed-pressed'' a hefty amount: 18,000 grams. It sounds impressive when counted the way the British do. I took one really heavy dumbbell and managed to hoist it over my head. When I put it down, the dog scooped it up in his mouth and buried it outside.

Mary Ellen, who regularly works out with a trainer, says my new resolution to lift things is a good sign. She’s hoping it will carry over to lifting a finger around the house to help. Or picking up the check when her brother and sister-in-law come to visit. As for me, this has all helped lift my spirits. I can now hold a six-pack out in front of me, arms parallel to the ground, for an entire TV commercial.

A few days ago, one of my macho neighbors helped me lug a huge barbell up to the second floor of our house. My hope was that after a few months working out with some of the lighter weights, I would one day be able to lift this new behemoth all by myself. Mary Ellen thought it looked ugly in our bedroom. So she took it down to the basement.

YES WE CAN

YES, WE CAN

My son has been buying frozen peanut butter and jelly sandwiches at the grocery store. I am hooked on the stupid things and I now have to hide them in the downstairs freezer behind the Healthy Choice dinners. If my wife finds out what I have been paying for this rip-off, she may never microwave anything good for me again.

Now, another innovation has hit the shelves: a peanut butter and jelly sandwich in a can. It’s called a Candwich, a product name that was tested with thousands of potential consumers and produced the fewest number of people sticking their forefingers in their mouths, pretending to gag.

Mark Kirkland from Utah is the creator of this idea. He claims that one day he was eating a cookie and chugging a Coke and when he put his hands together, it suddenly dawned on him that you could put peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in a can. Say what? Sorry, I don’t think this has quite the lasting charm of the story of Sir Isaac Newton and the apple.

So instead of buying a ready-made peanut butter and jelly sandwich in a vending machine, or purchasing the separate items in a supermarket, Kirkland puts all the stuff in a portable kit and charges four times as much money. Consumers are also unhappy to discover that—like their new deck chair—some assembly is required. And there are no instructions included.

Inside the container is a hot-dog-like bun wrapped in cellophane. Next to it is one squeezable packet of jelly and one of peanut butter. Dispensing ketchup and mustard this way has always been a hassle, so why not try it again with the world’s two slowest moving foods?

Included is a utensil for easy spreading. Sales for Candwich have been brisk, but not without some drawbacks. Prisons and airlines will not offer the product to their diners. “We’re not sure why,” said one of the company investors, “but we think it might be because there’s a knife in the can.” There is also a piece of taffy for dessert, an ill-advised choice because along with the peanut butter embedded in your palette, the company has pretty much eliminated any chance of word-of-mouth publicity.

Busy parents looking for an easy lunch for the kids applaud this meal in a can, although some are concerned that their six-year-olds might not be able to negotiate the pull-tab. “But I think they’ll figure it out,” said one mom, “and it will be a good learning experience for when they start drinking beer.”

And there’s a new treat soon to be launched, a BBQ Chicken sandwich in a can. Why chicken? Well one day Mark Kirkland had a piece of KFC in one hand and a...never mind, you get the idea.

Americans may soon buy sandwiches pretty much the same way they purchase Quaker State Motor Oil. Kirkland says there is no limit to where he may go with future product development. Pizza in a Can and Thanksgiving Dinner in a Can are both on the table—not that you really need a table to enjoy the contents. Of course, when you ask true food lovers what Mark should consider canning next, there’s a unanimous response: How about the entire concept? 

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DICK WOLFSIE: FAILURE TO LAUNCH

DICK WOLFSIE: FAILURE TO LAUNCH: "j FAILURE TO LUNCH ..."

FAILURE TO LAUNCH

j                                                 FAILURE TO LUNCH

                                                                            By Dick Wolfsie

During 30 years of marriage my wife has made dinner for me 6,700 times. This is just an estimate. I’m not some weirdo who keeps careful track of things like this, although it is interesting that I’ve cleared the table 6,692 times. Now, how many times has Mary Ellen made me lunch? Zero. Nada. Never. We do have our Thanksgiving meal around noon, but I refuse to call this Thanksgiving lunch because it makes it sound like we’re already digging through the leftovers.

So last week Mary Ellen decided to take some vacation days and just bring home a few files to work on. Because I have a home office, I was willing to assist her with some basic needs. She asked if she could borrow my computer in the afternoons.

“Not a problem, Dear. Sharing is what marriage is all about.”

“And the fax machine?”

“What’s mine is yours.”

“Oh, this will be so much fun. And we can finally have lunch together at home.”

Suddenly, the blood drained out of my head.  I started to perspire. A twitch developed in my right eye and I doubled over in pain.  She was bound to know I was not happy with that suggestion.

How do you tell someone after 30 years that you really don’t want to have lunch together?  When you are a man and you’ve eaten that second meal of the day alone most of your entire married life, you develop a few habits that are hard to break.  And my wife, who shares a significant DNA strain with Emily Post and Miss Manners, would never understand.  This was a recipe for trouble.

That first day, Mary Ellen wanted to have lunch around noon.  I usually sit down sometime between 10:30 and 4:15. Actually, I’ve never sat down for lunch at home in my life.  I make something while standing at the fridge, then eat it on the way upstairs to watch CNN.  By the time I reach the TV, I’m pretty much done eating. I just have to wipe the mustard off the banister.

Mary Ellen made it clear that a healthy meal includes a green vegetable.  But you can’t effectively walk up a flight of stairs eating spinach salad without a plate and a fork. Heaven knows, I’ve tried.

She also said she looked forward to having a conversation while we dined. I love my wife; I enjoy talking to her. But not on a Wednesday in broad daylight. And I’m sorry, but no real man has ever picked up the phone at home at 12:30 p.m. and said: “Can’t talk now, Elliot, I’m dining.”

Mary Ellen prepared a nutritious meal—a sauteed chicken dish with fresh broccoli. Once we were seated, she said, “Bon appetit,” which is considered an affectation even in France if it’s said before six at night.  Then she noticed what I was wearing.

“I can’t believe you have on sweats and a dirty T-shirt.  Please don’t sit down for a meal with me looking like that.”

I was hoping she would say that.  I stood straight up, grabbed my plate and headed for the stairs. A few minutes later, I heard Mary Ellen scream for me. She wasn’t angry. It was my turn to clear the table.