Ginger Snaps

A New Kind of Lipo

We used to watch medical procedure shows fifteen or twenty years ago. My Mom was a hypochondriac, remember, and she was very interested in all things medical. These shows taught her many things, like her spleen wasn't necessary or diabetics' toes can fall off. I am serious. They shrivelled up like marbles that failed quality control and the nurses would kind of jiggle the socks to spill them onto the counter.

The really cool procedures were ones where the surgeons' hands would disappear into the patient. We had to take their word for it, really, because the images were all blurry - like a Barbara Walters interview. Just knowing what was going on was enough to make us feel like we watched an entire lobotomy, even if we didn't really see anything. Cable TV really has relaxed its standards - now we can see all kinds of things. It is only a matter of time before we are even allowed to see the cosmetic procedures performed on genitalia.

No joke. That show Doctor 90210 had a couple undergoing surgeries to reduce the size of their sex organs. His scrotum looked big to him, and she thought her labia was unsightly. Both had their bits reduced, and they were happier with their more petite parts. The TV censors blacked out the before and after shots on these procedures, but we can surmise what a smaller testicle case would look like.

So imagine my surprise when I tuned into CNN and saw lipo going on. There is a new liposuction procedure available now that is easier, faster, with more precise results - and a huge price tag. It really surprised me that this footage - obviously a press release - was broadcast on a non-medical show. How is new lipo procedure mainstream news, anyway?

Perhaps it sucks out our brain since most of us aren't using any sort of grey matter.

Lenovo = No Go

Okay. I admit my little business is not the most lucrative one that ever existed, and big companies aren't exactly clamoring for my services. But I do work hard and I do treat my clients pretty well. I maintain multiple means of communication so they can contact me pretty much on demand, and I try to anticipate their needs.

Not true for Lenovo. I bought the Lenovo Think Center, a desktop PC model, because Lenovo is a leading "green" company. I read somewhere that people are the single greatest threat to the ecosystem's balance, and killing humans is the best way to restore Earth's environment. Lenovo has earned their green status by getting people so frustrated they either jump off the nearest bridge or their heads pop off from extremely high blood pressure.

You see, I am into instant gratification. I can't stand to wait for much of anything to happen. I didn't want to wait for the Dell PC to arrive in 3 days - I wanted it NOW! I drove to Office Depot to buy a PC NOW! We live in a society where things happen faster than ever, so I am not alone in my expectation of speed. Lenovo still hasn't gotten that message, apparently, because they not only didn't pack the power cord with their esteemed Lenovo 3000 J series I picked up, but also because their customer service response is not slow... it is nonexistant. My brother called Lenovo on my behalf since I was pretty busy. I called him 2 hours later. "What the hell is going on over there?"

"Well, you aren't going to believe this. I have spent all this time talking to people and calling a bunch of different numbers."

I immediately assume my brother just kicked a hoochie out of bed and is just starting to get Operation Power Cord out of the way. I am annoyed. "Give me the number. I'll call."

"Which number do you want?" He actually sounds exasperated.

I call a bevy of numbers, each leading me to a person who can't wait to transfer me. The Warranty Department tells me it is an issue for the Technical Department. The Techies transfer me back to the Warranty folks. They give me a different number. I call Sales. Sales tells me to call IBM, since Lenovo is full of IBM parts. I call IBM. IBM says Lenovo bought this division, so I need to call them. I get yet another number. My brother comes over with his spreadsheet and I realize I have spent 90 minutes on the phone already. Unbelievable.

The numbers my brother has are completely different from the half dozen I have collected in my own expedition. While talking to Rachelle in Sales, I snap. "Well, if you want a power cord, I can ship you one. That part is $9.95 when bought individually and shipping is $6.49 for that part. Will that be bank draft or credit?"

"Look, RACHELLE," I spit out her name with all the venom I've built up. "I bought a PC. A Lenovo PC. I already bought a power cord. You didn't give it to me. That is fraud now that you want me to buy one from you. If I bought a Dell, I would call them, tell them the power cord didn't ship, and the little UPS man would show up the next day with a power cord."

"We're not Dell." She shot back.

"That's pretty (expletive) obvious!" I scream into the phone and hang it up. My brother salvaged a power cord from an old PC in his PC graveyard and the esteemed Lenovo was powering up for the first time. It is now 2 in the afternoon, and I realize that ten dollar power cord has cost me at least five hundred bucks in poductivity. I may need to take the rest of the week off to recover from the trauma. I should've bought the Dell. I could've avoided work for three days and not had the stress.

Every Family Inherits a Psycho

            My former sister-in-law has enviable hair, nails and halter top collection. She is a walking billboard for the local tattoo parlor and has smoked enough weed to ensure the poor sap cremating her will get a hell of a contact high when the grim reaper stakes his claim. Some days I wonder what’s taking him so long.

            The jettisoned psycho ex is one of those people who has an adorable mouth, nose, eyes and flawless skin, but somehow all those features put together aren’t terribly attractive. I think the CQ (cute quotient) diminishes every time she opens her mouth, too. Some people can wear a Hefty sack and look smashing. Others – like Psycho Ex - look like a heap of trash in an otherwise glamorous evening gown. I thought the tattoo on her arm was a giant bruise until I got a better look at it. It is difficult to look classy with a smattering of unrelated caricatures carved onto your body. Not impossible, just difficult. The daisy duke cutoffs and braless tube tops don’t help.

            For the record, I have two tattoos. Most people never see either one because they are in very discreet locations. Their visibility is actually decreasing as I gain more weight and pretty soon the dragons on the small of my back will disappear into the crack of my ass.

            But I digress. The CQ of Psycho Ex is actually quite appealing when compared to her personality. Misspent the household allotment for utilities? Not a problem. Lean on extended families to pony up the money to turn the lights back on. When that stopped working, she had a kid. “The baby is cold,” she would say, “and we’ve no money for oil. We just need one shipment, and she is so cold…” Who doesn’t have a heart and wouldn’t pony up a few sheckles for that? And when the fuel truck was on its way over to deliver an emergency shipment (with a $50 fee on top, of course) she would ring someone up to come wait for it. “There is a peace protest in

Woodstock

and I promised I would bring the filet mignon to feed the marchers.” The next time fuel ran short, her answer would be “They stiffed us fifty bucks’ worth. Can you float us…?”

Credit was a dangerous way to live with her. “Oops!” She will say. “No one ever taught me how credit works.” She claimed not to know that credit cards weren’t preloaded cash, and was under the impression that once one was “used up,” well, you just moved on to the next one. Repayment was a thorn in her side and I heard her get mouthy with bill collectors on a regular basis. “You knew when you gave us that card what kind of money we had. You’re an idiot if you thought we had enough money to pay all that back.” Student loans were not so much for funding education as they were for financing vacations, leather coats, designer pants and nights on the town. There wasn’t a karaoke bar she wasn’t well acquainted with.

The worst part, though, was how she could turn on you like a rabid dog. Life with Psycho Ex was great unless you stopped agreeing with her. Then her claws came out and that pretty little mouth morphed into a megaphone, broadcasting all sorts of charming belittling sentiments. Whipping the unsuspecting into submission, she would finish the tirade by calling everyone she knew and telling them what an idiot you are. My gosh, according to her, I did hard time in prison, stole money from my father and scammed an entire community out of ticket money for an event that never happened. Funny thing, though, is that I haven’t been to prison, my father borrowed heavily from me since he hadn’t worked in years and this nonevent resulted in a large donation to my alma mater.

We all know a person who preys upon the good-hearted, hard-working among us. Time is unkind to those people, and that may be the only solace my brother has as he digs out from years of oppression by the tattooed wunderspender. Our mom finally doesn’t fall for her cries of her cold baby needing heat. She cuts Psycho Ex off when she starts degrading my brother now. That is progress for mom.

            Now, if only Psycho Ex could get a job, well, that would be progress. I’ll keep you posted.

Should Mom Get a Mini Cooper for Cancer?

My mom has been living with cancer for almost 7 years now. It is a very unusual cancer called Carcinoid Syndrome – less than 400 people are diagnosed with it every year. Lots more people walk around with it who don’t even know it. They are treated for Irritable Bowel Syndrome or some other gastric malady – often for years – and the cancer lies undetected for some time.

There is not a standard treatment for it since it is so uncommon. Basically, it is a crapshoot when an oncologist selects a chemotherapy agent to fight the tumors. It isn’t like breast cancer where we know a certain type of tumor at a particular stage is likely to respond to a particular regimen. No one really knows how long carcinoid patients can expect to live, either. My siblings and I all lost the first pool we had going over when our mom would keel over.

So the best gift our mom has given us is one of normalcy. She doesn’t feel sorry for herself. Even when she hurts, she will just say “it pinches a little.” It is accented with a wince or a sharp breath, and then she continues whatever it is she is doing. Mom has gone to work – even through multiple runs of chemo – and won’t let us pick up any of her slack.

Until now. These days she seldom lugs her laundry up and down the stairs herself, and I almost always take her to the market for groceries. I haul them up the stairs and put them away so she can avoid the stooping and bending that goes with putting her food in the cabinets. It seems like such a small thing. Putting away groceries can be such a chore. I often leave the non-perishables in the bag they came in for at least a week. But I have a choice. It isn’t as though the energy allocated to putting away the groceries detracts from my ability to do something else. It is tough to fathom that putting your own food in the fridge all by yourself signifies a good day. But that is how she lives. When she was on one particularly grueling round of chemo, she had to work herself up to open the mayonnaise jar. She simply didn’t have the energy to prepare the simplest meal for herself. But she just started eating pretzels out of the bag and it got her through the crisis.

This attitude has taught us all so much, and in return I wanted to buy her a little gift. She loves mini coopers, and so I was thinking about buying her one. Sure, with a new kid, a new mortgage on the horizon and the life of a freelance, that couple hundred bucks a month could be a college fund or retirement savings. But the little mini could bring her so much joy for whatever time she has left.

My brother met me at a local used car lot with a mini cooper in the first row of available cars. The Middle Eastern man with the handlebar mustache had already quoted me the princely sum of $14,500 before my brother arrived. “Only 84,000 miles,” he smirked. The car was four years old and the seats looked it. Todd took one look at the bumper and could see the bondo. The middle eastern man retreated into the little shed housing the dealership to retrieve the key.

“It’s been hit. Pretty bad, too, I’d say. See the swirl marks?” He ran his hand along the edge of the bumper. “The whole ass end has been worked on. Not too well, either.” The Middle Eastern man returned. Todd asked for a Car Fax report. Suddenly, the dealership was closing. He’d have to come back Monday for more information on the car.

Every day behind the wheel is a good day. If we can get mom behind the wheel of a mini Cooper sooner rather than later, maybe she will have a few more good days. She will want to get as much time in on the open road as she can, or so I would hope, as the twilight gradually gives way to the night of her life. That is the gift I would like to give back. Just one more trip would make it worthwhile.

We may not know what to expect from her cancer, other than how cancer inevitably ends. When that happens, it would be great to know we helped get her there in style. :-).

Messy Life, Clean Floors

Once upon a time, in a galaxy far, far away, I had a clean house. Sparkling hardwood floors and carefully coordinated fabrics dominated the home front. My laundry was cleaned in a luxuriously appointed room with travertine floors and soapstone counters topping the custom cabinetry. Even with a Golden Lab (big) Greater Swiss Mountain Dog (bigger) and a long-haired cat, everything in the house was hair free and clean. Shirley was my cleaning lady and my eyes mist whenever I think of her wrinkly face and hunched over body wiping those baseboards clean.

Not too long after Shirley’s stroke my favorite ex and I parted ways. In a way it was good she had the stroke when she did since it would’ve been tough to fight over who got her in the breakup. Now, my ex was an interesting fellow. Quite accomplished after a rough start in life and as an American, well, I just loved the under dog component to his life story. All good stories have endings, and mine occurred on a rainy Friday night when I was tossed out on my tookus. I didn’t have more than $3 in my pocket, the gas tank was just about empty and I didn’t have shoes. Stuck describes the situation fairly well. Most importantly, I didn’t really know where I was headed anyway. Sometimes we curse the emptiness – whether it be the gas tank, the bank account or something within us. An empty gas tank could’ve taken me far enough to get away, but what would I have done when I got there? Staying in a hotel for $3 wasn’t an option, so I got a little cozy in the car. It was so uncomfortable I couldn’t sleep. It made me think.

Once I sorted through a few things and got off a friend’s couch, I found another house. It wasn’t in the neighborhood I liked. It was kinda small and the window boxes across the front were screaming for pansies. But it wasn’t the car and I could sleep in a bed again. The fenced backyard was big enough for the dogs to play in. The flooring, like my refreshed attitude, was entirely new. My latest home was affordable, clean and only the mortgage company could kick me out. What more could a girl ask for?

I have vague recollections of my former life with the neatly placed flower arrangements and polished furniture. Right now I am sitting on a $10 couch I picked up when a neighbor moved. It is green and highly customized by Elmo, her cat, on the corners. Abu has kind of added to the original feel by scraping the fabric off all along the bottom, and Sand’s hair lends a fluffy white glow to the whole ensemble. The mocha colored curtains are a $6 yard sale splurge, and there is nothing about this room screaming “Better Homes and Gardens.” There are newspaper clippings, a baby bouncy seat, an exersaucer and all sorts of projects in varying stages of completion covering the floor. It helps to hide the dirt so I really don’t mind. I am happy to have this little place.

I was so busy sweeping my dirt under the carpet to keep the illusion of perfection. It felt good to have people over who complemented my impeccable home. But life was so messy it was tough to enjoy the overpriced Kirby in the closet. It couldn’t clean up everything that needed cleaning, starting with the years of crap piling up under the rug. The unpaid credit card bills, the $100,000 of financed cars, the flower pots custom made to fit on the stoop – none of it was necessary, but we sure looked good.

Ginger 2000 meet Ginger 2006. She weighs more. She has a kid. She has a dog and a cat and love handles to match the love for all she has gained since then. It is a good thing I am comfortable in my skin since there is a hell of a lot more of it these days. Even if it happens to be situated in the middle of a fur encrusted couch atop a dusty floor – I wouldn’t change a thing. Ginger 2000 certainly has cleaned up.

Fruity Tooty

Eating healthy. It evokes images of bran-filled ceral bowls and fiber laden dishes and the subsequent runs to the potty. Alas, whenever I get on one of these kicks, the Charmin is the first purchase. I know I will be needing it.

I once made a pact with one of my exes. I would go to the gym every day... and I did. I drove my car 12 miles up the road and across the bridge and parked in the overflowing lot. I would sit there, scarfing down Twinkies, proud that I kept my commitment to visit the gym daily. The pact didn't mention actually going inside.

Healthy food is something else. It taunts me from the cabinet, shouting, "I am not a devil dog!" Rice cakes and whole wheat pasta intermingle with the Snickers, which I have given up many times over. I don't allow them to mix for very long. It would be sacriligeous. The Snickers are promptly consumed. Sometimes I even go slow enough so I don't swallow a bit of wrapper with my binging.

I like my junk food unadulterated. Oatmeal raisin cookies, for instance, are just plain wrong. First of all, fiber and cookie are not words that belong in the same sentence for anyone below retirement age. Oatmeal is a prime source of fiber. Raisins are grapes on steroids. Hardly junk food. Then there is oatmeal chocolate chip cookie fare. The chips make it less healthful, sure, but the base product is still a heaping helping of roughage.

What really irritates me is that when I try to go all healthy, I buy a lot of fruit and vegetable matter. I proceed to place these perishables in the "Vegetable Crisper" drawer in the fridge. In truth, it is a "Vegetable Rotter" in my house. I bought a bag of apples this week, for instance. Five bucks for 2 pounds. Organic.

Organic is code word for crappy-looking fruit with lots of brown spots you have to like because it is how these things look without pesticides. It is the real deal, tootsie, and enjoy your unadulterated uber healthy fruit.

I didn't care about the uber healthy pure part as I peeled those apples, cored them and boiled them up to make baby food. I can buy that if I really wanted it - I wanted something for ME to eat. I wasn't going to lose the five bucks so I spent an hour making applesauce. An hour I could've spent working making ten times the value of the apples.

It is just hard to eat healthy when the produce quality varies so widely. It is a crapshoot whether or not I will be satisfied when I nosh on a Granny Smith. I know the Snickers satisfies. Even their ad campaign says so. The point is, we are so homogenized today that even fruits and veggies are affected. It makes me cringe to know the corn in my pot may be genetically modified. Then I realize I don't really know what it means so I can chow down with impunity.

Eating healthy was never so much fun!

Illegal Immigration to My Neighborhood

            Tonight while driving home I happened by a pickup truck being towed. The policeman had stopped the driver for some infraction and for one reason or another, a tow truck was summoned. I must say the driver had a very south-of-the-border look. An obvious conclusion is the driver had neither a license nor insurance to be operating the vehicle legally.

            This is the part of the illegal immigration debate that eats at me. First, I am making the assumption the guy’s pickup was being towed for lack of insurance and that he didn’t have a license because he is here illegally. I wouldn’t jump to that conclusion if the motorist were black, white or even of Asian descent. It bothers me that I am not charitable toward him because of his obvious ethnicity. I thought I was better than that.

            But then I look at what is happening to this neighborhood I love so much. I see families crowded out because they no longer feel safe now that the 3-bedroom dwelling next door has more occupants than I have fingers and toes. I see the line of children waiting for the bus swollen with dark hair and brown faces, squealing in a language I barely understand. If their parents want them to be here, to be American, why are they wearing red and green flags on their shirts instead of Uncle Sam’s colors?

            I think of those children as the tired pickup truck is hitched to the tow truck, shovels and lumber sliding toward the back of the bed as its front is lifted. I don’t want those kids I see at the bus stop to go hungry because Dad lost his ability to eke out his living now that the truck is impounded. I don’t want Dad to be part of the underground economy, either, while food stamps keep their pantry filled. I don’t want to feel different toward those children than I do toward any other child, just because of where they hail from. But I can’t deny that I do. It makes me feel small when I am less patient with them or when I pretend to be engrossed in an ingredient label in the store so I make them walk around me. I want to demand proof of legal

U.S.

residency before I let them merge in front of me in traffic. Why?

            Because I am weary of the debate. I am tired of the same old arguments everybody makes. The illegals tell us we are a nation of immigrants and cannot criticize them. That they don’t have licenses or insurance because the laws here are stacked against them. That their behaviors are perfectly acceptable in their homeland. The anti-illegals blame the interlopers for increased taxes, the extreme rise in health care costs, the escalating bills for ESL classes in schools, crime, and the reason Pink Floyd hasn’t recorded any new material in a good long while. The truth is somewhere in between, I am sure.

            Oh, and the part of me that doesn’t qualify for public assistance is glad that truck was hauled off tonight. It brings me hope that maybe we are enforcing our laws and making it difficult for the undocumented population to stay. The humanitarian in me is more ashamed that I feel that way.

I Am A Crappy Neighbor

A new neighbor just moved in upstairs. She has a grouchy pit bull and works strange hours. When she comes home at 12:30 she walks her pit bull in front of the building and she lets it crap right in front of my bay window. Sweet. No, she doesn’t scoop it up, either. This really irritates my dog, and I think the sun comes up before he is calm enough to stop barking at every car, noise and person within a 50 mile radius. This time, though, I am trying to be nice about this.

You see, the first neighbors I ever had were a loud, obnoxious twenty-something couple with stringy hair and very bad taste in the very bad music they blasted until 1AM. The female half of the oafish duo was obviously a crackhead. It was evident because I might’ve been able to squeeze one leg into her freakishly tiny pants. My next neighbors were straight out of Mayberry, and the neighbors after that had a white fluffy dog named Angel that barked all the time. I called her the Devil Dog. Oh yes. I can’t forget the neighbors with the kids with very bad vision. They dented my car more than once when they miscalculated their ability to throw a football so it could actually be caught.

            My last move left me with neighbors hosting a yappy dog and very poor parking courtesy. While lamenting my bad luck with a lifetime of bad neighbors, I realized something:

            I was the crappy neighbor.

            It’s true. There is no way 7 addresses yields 7 bad sets of neighbors. It is a statistical impossibility to strike out this many times. I am forced to look at the common denominator… which is me. Maybe my dog is just neurotic and some other dog’s poop on his turf is his problem, not the pit bull’s fault. And that poor parking courtesy? How many times did I help anyone out in that place? Once or twice, maybe. No one owed me a better parking spot. The crackhead might’ve been a vegetarian or had a lightning fast metabolism.

            In any case, I am determined to break the cycle. I don’t want my son to pick up this nasty anti-neighbor vibe from me and to perpetuate it for another generation. The buck stops here. I will keep the curtain securely shut so my dog can’t be goaded by a little pit’s stop. And I can use the 12:30AM wake-up call to clean my place once every one is asleep. I won’t even make fun of her half-rotted tooth whenever anyone asks about the new tenant. It just wouldn’t be neighborly, would it?

And the Menu Foods Secret Ingredient Is...

            So today we find out loving pet owners all over North America unwittingly fed rat poison to their precious Fluffies and Fidos. I couldn’t imagine the betrayal I would feel if I were a Menu Foods customer.

            The companies relying on Menu Foods to make their concoctions should be quite angry – some brands may never recover from this awful tragedy. Responsibility for quality control falls squarely on Menu Foods’ shoulders. Life will march on for Menu Foods. Not so true for all the pets who have eaten the products they manufactured.

            Thankfully, my neurotic but lovable cat Abu and his canine companion Sand are not affected by this catastrophe. I feed them Wellness brand and Newman’s Own products. This food is so healthy, I should stop eating the garbage I live on and add it to my diet. I am serious. It goes for at least 2 bucks a pound. But I spend the money for what I am not getting – cheap filler, byproducts, and heaven knows what else. I buy my pet food from a great little place – Lucas Avenue Pet Supply – and the guy running the place has done a great job educating me about all the things in pet food I really wouldn’t want my dog eating.

            It all started with Clifford. He is a gorgeous Greater Swiss Mountain Dog I picked up from a doggie rescue. His only real problem was the stench emanating from him. His coat stunk as bad as his… well… gas. His coat was dry and flaky… did I mention stinky? “Stay out of the drive thru with him,” the veterinarian cautioned. “Buns are especially bad for dogs.”

            It broke my heart to drive past Burgerville. Their Rogue River Valley Bacon Burgers were to die for, but I couldn’t stand to eat in front of Clifford. So we went cold turkey together, and something magical happened. He stopped stinking and I lost 15 pounds. I started looking at labels and researching foods. And one day it happened. It was like a movie – I swear. We were at the park and the sun danced off his smooth black coat. Every muscle in his body was defined while he shimmered. I know it sounds crazy, but I was so proud at that moment I knew without a doubt that his diet made him gorgeous. I never begrudged a $49.99 bag of food again. Once, when money was really tight, I felt so guilty stretching the budget by mixing in store brand kibble with the good stuff. Thank heaven he survived.

            This recall has reminded me about the real costs of being mindless. I could just as easily be affected if not for Clifford. Abu and Sand survived the most recent skirmish in Lebanon and were evacuated to the United States as war refugees. It would’ve sucked if they dodged bombs and bullets to come to the land of opportunity to be felled by pet food filler – which is what wheat gluten is. I don’t mind paying for the peace of mind knowing my pets are eating the best foods out there. If only I took my own advice, put down the Diet Coke and ate out of their bowls, well, I would probably be as healthy as they are.

Baby Luv

     When I first learned I was pregnant I was warned about all the people who would want to approach me and rub by growing Buddha belly. They would tell me about their horrific 6 day labors and their tragic distant relative who lost her life, her baby, her partner or some combination thereof as a casualty of the process. And it was largely true. As my circumference increased, so did strangers’ curiosity… and their offers to help.

I am not talking about offers to babysit Saturday night (never happened) or a willingness to hold open doors or haul groceries (happened a lot). Nope. Complete strangers offered me their cast-offs. At first I was offended. Most maternity clothes are very unflattering, but did I look destitute? As I struggled to heave my wobbly self off the couch for basic necessities like using the bathroom, I just didn’t have the energy to stand at the sink to style my hair. Turning the steering wheel in the car was a challenge, too. The steering wheel sort of edged into my tummy. It made it nearly impossible to find the right eyeshadow and blush sitting on the passenger seat, so I was too big even to put on makeup.

Now that my son is older I have a bunch of baby gear he no longer needs. So you know what I do? I stalk pregnant women. I do. I ask them if they are having a boy or a girl. If it is a boy, I feel like I hit the jackpot. I know I have a shot at unloading the blue themed blankies and rolling bassinet. The quest to find good homes for perfectly good secondhand items is difficult. It is the conspiracy of Consumer Reports and Target.

Consumer Reports has everyone afraid to use secondhand baby equipment. We spend $5 billion a year on car seats because we are cautioned against using one of unknown etiology. This is true of cribs, bassinets, strollers, and pretty much every other thing we rely on to save our backs when hauling around our little bundles of joy. Target can rescue us. We host baby showers to guilt people who don’t really like us into procuring all the above referenced items for the new arrival. Big box stores – like Target – make it easy to select all sorts of goodies without shame. $200 stroller? Put it on the registry. $150 car seat? Put it on the registry. $20 onesie with less fabric than my $2 pair of panties? Put it on the registry. There is such a glut of stuff that by the time the kid is born, we have ten boxes of newborn diapers, enough blankets to cover every homeless person in town and so many clothes they are practically disposable. This is fine because you don’t really have time to do laundry anyway once the kid comes.

A lot of things I had for my son went unused. I would like to see someone save a bit of money and haul it off for me. Ebay has been a lifesaver – I have disposed of countless pieces of my son’s precious infancy on the site. But nothing beats giving a boppy pillow to a young lady I just met in the store when she has a baby on board. So watch out for me, all expectant moms, because I still have a bouncy seat and a slew of sneakers to unload. And I really just want to help.