Celebrities constantly give themselves awards for pretending to be real. Real people should get awards for making it through the day without giving in to the urge to spit on anyone.

Best impression of a productive employee while surfing the net – SCREW YOU award

Best impression of being a considerate boss while screwing your employees – DICK award

Most obnoxious customer in a retail establishment – MOC Award

Most aggressive driver in a residential neighborhood – MAD Award

Best female impression of a princess – The “You Go Girl” Award

Best male impression of a pompous asshole – The “Atta-Boy” Award

All nominations thoughtlessly considered.

Invention of the light bulb eliminated early bedtime. To stay awake, television was created, effectively ending meaningful conversation. Lack of communication and better programming produced a desire for more T.V. time. Thus, microwaves were invented, which eradicated the need to discuss whose turn it was to cook. The less we had to talk, the more tired we became, giving birth to the remote control, which effectively reduced the need for channel changing children, a handy coincidence since we’re now much too distracted by all the additional responsibilities time-saving inventions have produced to go to bed early enough to make babies.

The smartest people are those who acquire knowledge by mistake. In attempts to boost my IQ scores, therefore, I strive to err daily. This week’s lesson was how to win friends and influence people. Reading Dale Carnegie’s book would have given me unfair advantages. So I didn’t. This week’s boo-boos (so far):
Point out your English professor’s misspellings, preferably in front of his class.
Point out your husband’s grammatical bloopers, preferably in front of his boss.
Point out your boss’s mathematical slip-ups, preferably in front of his clients.
To err is human; pointing out other people’s errors, a stupid mistake.

Ten possible reasons people don’t answer your winsome grin with one of their own:

You have a piece of last night’s pork dinner stuck in your front tooth.

They’re porking your girlfriend and are afraid smiling will make them look guilty.

Your fly is unzipped, and they have mistaken you for a Level 2 sex offender.

They just swallowed a fly.

You traded your personality in exchange for personal success.

Their recent personality implantation surgery was unsuccessful.

Not enough Prozac.

Too much Prozac.

They find your constantly raging perkiness annoying.

They are annoyed by a raging case of perpetual constipation.

In today's world, secretaries are not typists and file clerks. They are Assistants. Garbage collectors do not just pick up the leftovers of your life. They are Sanitation Specialists/Recycling Practitioners. Driving is a "sport." Nursing homes are long-term care campuses. Advertisements are not mere petty annoyances on the road to the monotony that was formerly your nap, but "Brand Recognition Campaigns." It follows, then that writers are grammatical, spelling and punctuation engineers specializing in informative manipulation techniques. Little white lies make life more pleasant, and, of course, a spade is really just an inverted black heart with a tail.

"Bag" Lady Confessions: Altoids, address/appointment book Band-aids, book, batteries, bills Cell phone, camera, checkbook, chocolate, credit cards Dramamine, dental floss, Ear plugs, envelopes, emery boards Face shield, flashlight Glasses, gum Hairbrush, hand cream, hairspray Ibuprofen, insurance card Journal Kleenex, keys License, lottery tickets, lint brush Mirror, magnifying glass, matches, makeup Needle, No-doze Orange nail polish Pepper spray, perfume, pens, pantyhose Q-tips, quarters Razor, rain hat, receipts Stamps, Swiss army knife, sanitizer, safety pins Tape recorder, toothpaste, toothbrush, tampons, tweezers Underwear, umbrella Vitamins, vehicle registration Wallet, water, whistle Xanax Yellow post-its Zippered bag (for more stuff) No wonder we're lopsided.

1/10th of a second - Amount of time we have to make a first impression.
1 minute - Amount of extra time we say we need.
10 minutes - Amount of extra time we take.
$.10 - Amount it used to cost to call someone who cared.
100 mph - How fast a sneeze travels.
1000 - The year Stephen became King of Hungary.
10,000 - Number of marriages a year that are directly traceable to romances which begin during coffee breaks.
100,000 times a day - The number of times the average heart beats.
$1,000,000 - The amount of money most people think they need to be happy.

Whenever gift-giving occasions loom, women are the first (only) victims of panic attacks. In most male/female partnerships, women are the responsible party in present presentation. This, like many things in life, is an unpleasantly imbalanced state of affairs. We consider cost, fret over style, scrutinize the merchandise, and make endless comparisons, striving to find something totally unique and utterly special. After spending hours hunting and backtracking, we finally choose just the right something, whereupon we have it wrapped and beribboned, adding a distinctive card. The male gifting experience – “Here’s a $20 – buy something nice. Get me some beer too.”

Do people incorporate their environments into their personalities? Are people in Oddville KY strange? Do Normal Illinoisans make friends with Ordinary KY citizens? If they can’t assimilate in Happyland OK or Success MO, do they eventually move to Last Chance Colorado? Many Blue Ball PA locals probably move to Intercourse, but how many find they fit best in Stalker? Are the townspeople in Climax MI happier than the ones in Tingley IA? And how many Maryland natives work in Boring, live in Crappo and date in Scaggsville? I’m considering a move now – maybe Chocolate Bayou TX would sweeten me up.

Have you ever noticed when one of your possessions malfunctions, everything else you own suffers empathetic failure too? Strawberry daiquiri splashed all over my new shoes, signaling blender bottom breakdown. Within a week, synchronized displays of mechanical hypochondria commenced. First the music stopped. Then the toilet backed up, the computer files didn’t, the dryer burned up, the pool pump broke down, and the car started coughing, gasping and choking. The toaster caught a chill; which was just fine, because dry toast is hard to swallow, and the coffee pot, spluttering, blew the last fuse on its way to piece-of-crap purgatory.

In writing, perfection is fleeting. It might exist in the morning, but by midnight, it will need a cleaning; next week, a complete paint job, and by next month, major renovations. After a year, perfection collapses completely, sagging in the middle and listing to one side, as if it’s been condemned and is resignedly awaiting the wrecking ball to put it out of its misery. I waste a lot of paper. Nevertheless, I write. The house gets dirty, the refrigerator is bare, and friends are calling to ask if I’m still breathing – writing – breathing – to me, it’s the same thing........

Saturday September 16th was Wife Appreciation day. I certainly hope all the husbands out there remembered to buy a gift. However, since it does fall on the same day as Trail of Tears Commemoration day, International Coastal Clean Up Day, International Day for the Preservation of the Ozone Layer, Hurricane Katrina National Day of Prayer and Remembrance and International Eat an Apple day, it’s possible you’ll be forgiven if you forgot. Remind her that September is also Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder Month. She might cut you some slack, but will probably point out that September 17th is Time’s Up day.

Ten ways to trim a flabby budget:

Put the kids up for adoption. Ditto for dogs, cats, goldfish and the hamster (if you can find him).

Get divorced. Two can’t live as cheaply as one.

Sell your Hummer to a scrap metal yard, and learn how to walk all over again.

Donate your house to the homeless.

Move to a tent.

Don’t leave a forwarding address.

Make friends with the Jones. Borrow their stuff instead of buying your own.

Join a nudist colony.

Convert to a religion that bans gift giving.

Hunt your own food, and learn to enjoy fasting.

Other than cutting their own salaries, politicians seem open to new and innovative methods of decreasing expenses and increasing income so they can avoid becoming one of us after the next election. I have a few suggestions:

Mandatory home schooling.

Stop manufacturing and posting speed limit signs. No one is looking at them.

Use street sweepers to fill in potholes with roadside garbage.

Raise the cigarette tax to $100 a pack.

Sell state lottery tickets door to door. The elderly, infirm and mentally incompetent have a dollar and a dream too; they just can't get a ride to the store.

Women – mayflies; their presence an indicator of a clean and healthy environment.

Men – June bugs; they keep going even when they have no idea where they are.

Women – apples; crabby, sweet, fruity, round, ripe or hard, sometimes all at once. Men – pumpkins; tough on the outside and good as pie sweetened with a little sugar.

Women – snowflakes; beautifully unique, and even when they know better, melting in the presence of hot air.
Men – blizzards; dumping extra flakes on dirt to make it look clean and beautiful.

Women – renewal of life, gentle spring showers, budding plants and flowers
Men – Mud. Bud.

The word “woman” is not synonymous with “to be in charge of” and until we can learn to trust each other, and avoid maligning our own gender, it never will be. A guy can be prettier, smarter, richer and more successful than we are, and we’re okay with that – we’re even happy for him. But if another woman is prettier, she’s a bitch; smarter, a hostile bitch; more successful, a greedy bitch. The problem, of course, is that we’re all imperfect and insecure. We’re genetically incapable of cutting ourselves or each other any slack. And it’s easier to trick men.

My 23 year old daughter moved out last spring. I thought I would have more space and time, less laundry and fewer pets. I imagined I'd finally get rid of that ugly orange velvet couch she loved. The couch wouldn't fit into her living room, the landlord wouldn't allow cats, and the place didn't come with laundry facilities. So, in addition to retaining ugly furniture, I am also responsible for and still tripping over two cats, rearranging the attics to accommodate her storage limitations, and there are some strange looking men's boxer shorts in my laundry basket that need folding.....

It’s that time of year again. Your first hint might be the patriotic color schemes of the latest fashion in lawn ornamentation. Then your mailbox begins to overflow, your phone rings incessantly (even if you’re on the do not call list) and finally, thanks to television advertising, you begin to feel personally acquainted with political offspring. It’s certainly going to be a hard choice again this year – do you vote for the candidate with the best qualifications and most experience or the one with prettiest signs, cutest kids, or the sincerest thank-you letter for your as yet still undecided vote?

There aren’t many Americans who won’t think about the September 11, 2001 victims today, and consider themselves lucky. We are the ones who didn’t lose a best friend, or a child, or a parent, or a sibling, or a spouse. We didn’t lose our health, our eyesight, the use of our limbs, our place in the world, our job, our home, or that silly, sentimental keepsake we looked at every day. We might feel lost, but we’re not alone in the loss of our innocence. And we can refuse to lose anything more by holding on to hope and memory.

My brother, who is my polar political opposite (but I love him anyway) tells me that same sex marriage will lead to inter-species marriage - that people will want to marry their dogs next. Although there are probably only a few people who would consider their dog spouse material, canines might be better suited as spouses than human beings. They never stop running to the door to greet you at the end of the day, they love your morning breath, they never put the toilet paper roll on backwards, they are more loyal, less apt to argue and always listen.

Studies show color can provoke feeling; yellow makes you happy, orange makes you hungry, blue makes you cold and green calms you down. Different colors do trigger sensation sometimes. Purple, for instance, represents pain when I, again, misjudge the number of inches required to pass through an opening. Orange induces queasiness ever since my happy meal produced a few gallons of unhappiness. Hot pink makes me tired because it was my daughter's favorite color from age 4 to 5 minutes after I finished painting her whole room her former favorite color. Brown calms me down though. Preferably shades of Hershey.

It’s harder to distinguish criminals from law-biding citizens lately. Fresh faced kids sport crude tattoos. Teenage girls, hooked by fashion trends, corner the market on exhibitionism. Smut is no longer a four-letter word, and four-letter words pepper polite conversation. Cops shave their heads, and lawyers pierce their bodies in weird places. There’s still a reliable way for hairless, law enforcement officers to catch untattooed criminals, though. Dilettantes rip their clothes to fit in, but delinquents frequently wear clothes that don’t fit. An untied shoe caught in a floppy crotch makes it harder to commit the crime and run good time.

My father believed you could fix most electrical items with a screwdriver and a few creative curses. The first and only rule was to leave it plugged in. The current hitting you and your body hitting the wall would usually correct the problem and cure your ability to speak in full sentences all at once. There was probably no hope, therefore, that I would end up feeling the need to crack open an instruction manual. Luckily, I’ve found mistake making the most powerful learning tool available – every bump, bruise or scar jars my memory into providing the corresponding cuss word.

My single friends complain they can’t meet men. I thought it was probably easy to meet one, but for what?

Display a recent issue of Playboy. Any guy within reading radius will ask to borrow it. For the stories.

Grill meat before leaving home. The scent of roasted flesh clinging to your hair is a guaranteed aphrodisiac.

Wear t-shirts with complicated slogans. In addition to providing conversation starters, it alleviates potential embarrassment at being caught staring.

Smile knowingly. It weeds out the foolish from the brave.

If all else fails, walk around naked with a six pack in each hand.

Your mother believed him. He promised to save her. But then he was gone and she was alone until you were born. You were each other’s only family, yet, somehow, you grew up by yourself. He promised to save you when he found out about the baby. You wanted to believe him. No one had ever noticed you needed saving. Your mother was too busy looking for her own savior to rescue you or even to be your mother. And then he left and you were alone. Except for me. So I was born. Alone, except for you, my mother.

You chat and aerobicize simultaneously - Toner Phoner.

You use your cell phone to broadcast personal complaints in public places - Bemoaner Phoner.
While making a call in a room full of people, you notice multiple animated conversations, yet no one in the room is speaking to anyone else in the room. You realize you've become a - Cloner Phoner.
You use your cell phone to take pictures, send text messages, listen to music and tell time, but never make or receive calls - Misnomer Phoner.
You refuse to admit you're a cell phoner. You must immediately seek reconnection and become a Disowner Phoner.

You feel emasculated when you accidentally leave home without your cell phone - Testosteroner Phoner.
To impress your ex-girlfriends, you purchase a new, improved cell phone every three months - I Shown 'er Phoner. Generously, of course, you give your old cell phones to charity - Donor Phoner.
You never use your cell phone in public, but you have the utmost respect and admiration for those who aren't afraid to use theirs - Condoner Phoner.
You have yet to receive a call. In desperation, you start leaving messages on your own voice mail in an attempt to use up your unlimited minutes - Loner Phoner.

A Handy Reference Guide for Cell Phoners:

You have driven 47 miles in the wrong direction during a heated cell phone conversation and suddenly realize you have no idea where the hell you are - Zoner Phoner.
You do business while doing your business in public restrooms - Throner Phoner .
You bought a cell phone to get a girlfriend, but the only number you can reach is 1-not-aCh-ance - Boner Phoner.
You enjoy lighting up while chatting. Mistaking one for the other, you set your cell phone on fire - Stoner Phoner .
You always mean to return calls but never do - Postponer Phoner .......

There are endless, effortless ways to fit exercise into your schedule.
Stop tipping the paperboy. Crawling around in the bushes builds muscle.
Learn to insult strangers. Studies have shown that running with a goal – like survival – improves blood flow.
Be clumsier. The more you drop and retrieve, the more toned your butt becomes.
Become forgetful – multiple trips to the same room will do something for some part of your body.
Finally, find something you like on T.V. and wrestle your husband for the remote. You’ll either get your own way or move on to the most pleasant form of exercise.