Please Pass The Parmesan

Around October every year I refrain from making any last minute impulse purchases for myself and starting feeding them as Christmas gift tips to JJ. This eliminates the guesswork on his part and ensures I get what I want. Which is, of course, the whole point of Christmas.

One evening back in October I found myself ALL ALONE in Walgreens while waiting for them to fill a scrip. And by ALL ALONE I’m not talking WALGREENS ONLY CUSTOMER … I’m talking about the only 30 minute window of time during 2008 I didn’t have a child, spouse or dog attached to my hip. In celebration of my aloneness and the absence of questions like WHERE’S THE MILK or HOW DOES GRAVITY WORK , I decided to treat myself to something nice.

After surveying my options … shower cap? new socks? nose hair clipper? purple fingernail polish? … I narrowed my selection down to either the Scooby Doo Chia Pet or the Ped Egg. Now, I have to tell ya, Scooby Doo almost won out because (a) being a child of the ‘70’s I spent every Saturday morning glued to either Scooby Doo or Land of the Lost cartoons and what could be cooler than Scooby Doo growing out of some mysterious organic material? (b) and, I’ve been hyper-skeptical of the Ped Egg since it first stormed the shores of women’s feet everywhere and all the praise started … blah, blah, blah.

I think, deep down, all that Ped Egg praise wore down my self-esteem as I was pretty much convinced my heels would snap that dinky little cheese grater in two and I’d be the first woman in history to take them up on their “money back guarantee”.

And just as I was about to throw caution to the wind and toss the Ped Egg in to my basket (keep in mind, this story might have had a completely different ending if Walgreens had just carried the Land of the Lost Sleestack Chia Pet) I realized THIS would make a perfect addition to JJ’s “Christmas Tip List”.

So Christmas rolls around and OH! SURPRISE! MOMMY GOT A PED EGG!

After days spent digesting pie and picking Christmas wrap and tape off the tile floors I finally broke open my new pink Ped Egg the other day and commenced to shaving enough skin off my heels to pretty much guarantee I’m back down to a size 9 shoe.

And that handy little storage compartment of shavings? Well, I managed to get a RETCH AND A GAG out of JJ when I showed him the fruits of my labor and reminded him that even though it looked like PARMESAN CHEESE don’t go sprinklin’ it on his spaghetti and meatballs. Bonus.

Only problem is all that shaving revealed two Grand Canyon sized cracks in my heels that had been buried under inches of a dried, calcified skin-like substance. And those cracks have been killing me. Or maybe it’s that I accidentally shaved all the way down to the bone. Regardless, once the bleeding stops and they get the skin grafts to take my heels are gonna look awesome.

But this is what I noticed this morning as I was caressing this wonder of the modern world … I’ve got the PROFESSIONAL model.

Says so right on the egg.

This, my friends, is not for amateurs. Sure, I’ve been benched after my initial test run but after my mandatory healing time I’m ready to take on the big boys.

That’s right. I’m going pro.

I’ve got the talent. I’ve got the tool. I’ve got the heels.

And I’m thinking it’s about time to start looking for sponsors. You know, lucrative endorsement deals. I’m willing to make room on my PROFESSIONAL PED EGG for paid logos and advertisements. Heck, I’d even let “Wonder Bread” sew a couple of patches on to my bathrobe - just like the NASCAR jumpsuit Will Ferrell wears in “Talladega Nights”.

And while white bread sponsors would be okay … I do, after all, let my kids wad up slices of white bread and stuff them en masse in to their mouths while we’re dining out at Rudy’s BBQ just down the road … I’d rather hear from the folks at Jack Link’s Beef Jerky, just so they’d let me be in one of their ”Messin’ With Sasquatch” commercials, which have completely changed my life.

So, if you’re reading this Jack Link (and I’m sure you are), have your people get in touch with my people. Let’s talk. I am, after all, a PROFESSIONAL and thinkin’ the only heels nastier than my pre PED EGG heels could only be found on a creature like Big Foot. It’s a match made in heaven.

would you like some sasquatch skin with that?

in case you missed it, college football season is in full swing.

also, our beloved colorado rockies just got spanked in the world series last night.

"so what?" you ask.

well, in our household, football PLUS baseball EQUALS ...

"sports on television"

a lot.

and "sports on television" means my kids are exposed to very "manly" advertisements for such consumer products as beer and beef jerky.

and it just so happens that, while i'm not a big eater of beef jerky, if i WERE i'd buy one brand and one brand only just because of the ads ...

Jack Link's Beef Jerky presents "Messin' With Sasquatch".

so we're in costco the other day and we walked past a display of beef jerky. not the jack link's kind, but the costco kind.

and all of a sudden wyatt points at the display and announces "there's some sasquatch".

oooooh, this is good ... he actually thinks beef jerky is called "sasquatch".

so being the exceptional mother that i am i snicker a little under my breath and tell him WHY YES, YOU'RE RIGHT, THERE IS SOME SASQUATCH.

john catches up with us and before i have a chance to share with him that our 4 year old has concluded that beef jerky is called "sasquatch" wyatt looks up at his daddy and asks him - while pointing at the bag of beef jerky - is that made out of SASQUATCH SKIN?

so, of course, we had to buy some, just to let him know what sasquatch skin tastes like.

it's salty.

but, of course, you already knew that.

act your age, not your shoe size

so we pretty much live out in the sticks. we've got our wal-mart and our home depot and an entire antique shopping district but as far as "real" shopping goes, well, we've got to drive all the way in to san antonio.

and as we do, we find it necessary to pass by the evil "bass pro shop".

now, i'm not saying there's anything intrinsically "wrong" with bass pro shops ... it's just that being married to the guy i'm married to we rarely pass BY the bass pro shops where we don't have to stop and GO IN TO the bass pro shops.

and that's just not my kind of shopping.

camouflage bedding.

beef jerky.

fishing boats.

turkey jerky.

guns.

alligator jerky.

did i mention that this bass pro shops it's absolutely HUGE? and that they carry jerky?

which means i can lose john in about 10 seconds flat only to find him 2 hours later caressing a 12 foot long smoker/grill you can actually hook up to a trailer hitch and cart around town.

it's enough to make me curl up underneath the stuffed elk and cry. you know the stuffed elk over by the indoor fish pond stocked with thousand pound catfish that terrify my 4 year old. actually, i find them kinda scary too.

you may have seen us going in to bass pro shops before. i'm the 43 year old adult splayed out on the million degree asphalt kicking and screaming. that tantrum-throwing adult? yep, that's me.

riley and i did discover a little somethin' way up on the second floor the other day, though, right behind the "bow hunting" department.

they carry women's shoes ....

and not just the hip-wader-slogging-through-the-swamp-frog-gigging kind of shoes but REAL shoes. girly shoes.

you know, the kind where your toenails show.

so, naturally, riley and i proceeded to go to town trying on shoes while john and "his" son were downstairs, lost somewhere in the bait aisle.

and that's when i realized my riley, my precious little 11 year old daughter, has surpassed me in shoe size.

in fact, nothing in the bass pro shops inventory fit her.

she's already a size 11+.

so we went toe-to-toe and it appears her big toe, the boss of all the other toes, is the culprit.

he's huge.

he's the goliath of big toes in the big toe world.

even in a pair of flip flops* her big toe hangs over the edge like a cliff diver eyeing the rocks below.

*sidebar: we used to call these "thongs" but daughter informs me that today's proper use of the word "thong" implies fabric being crammed up your fanny crack and therefore it's not appropriate to announce in the middle of the bass pro shop shoe department that we're intersted in TRYING ON THOSE THONGS. which, of course, gives me license to stand there saying THONGS THONGS THONGS THONGS over and over thereby driving her in to a humiliated pre-teen frenzy.

now, i have to admit, my first thought was "oh dang, she's outgrown everything i'm going to be able to buy off the rack ... she's going to require custom-made italian shoes for everything ..."

but then i was overcome with the "she's only 11 ... how BIG ARE HER FEET GOING TO BE?"

and then i looked over and realize this sweet little 11 year old girl also understood the unspoken - all the cute shoes she sees in nordstrom and macy's and neiman marcus and sometimes target aren't going to fit her.

and just when i think she might be tearing up she comes up with this AT LEAST WHEN SOMEONE TELLS ME TO ACT MY AGE, NOT MY SHOE SIZE I CAN TELL THEM I AM.

and i'm relieved 'cause she's let me off the hook ... i don't have to justify marrying and procreating with a 6'7" man who is the carrier of the "huge foot" gene.

last night we were "chatting" about uncompleted chores and she looked at me, serious as can be, and told me to "stop messing with the sasquatch" ...

sasquatch? did she just call herself a sasquatch?

AWESOME. THAT'S ONE LESS HALLOWEEN COSTUME I HAVE TO FIGURE OUT.