Today

Today is a very special day. It is the day, in 1808, that the first practical typewriter was invented. Before that, people sat around looking at impractical typewriters, wondering how much they could get for them at a garage sale. Thank goodness for Italian Pelligrini Turri, without whom we would all now be sitting around looking at impractical computers. However, the typewriter is not why today is special. Today is also the day that Chelsea Clinton decided, in 1997, to attend Stanford College. Also -- much more importantly -- on this day in 1904 the ice cream cone made its debut. As critical as that is to our modern lives, however, it is not why today is special either.

We are referring to the Prissy Princess's birthday. In honor of this occasion, we are posting the first-ever picture to appear on this blog. (We would have had one sooner, but among the Princess's few talents is not one for using technology.) So here, on this momentous occasion, is a photo of the birthday Princess:








Hmmm, the ears aren't quite right. Obviously, the Princess needs some more practice inserting photos. Let's try again.







Well, that's a little better, but I think we've had enough photo practice for today. Stay tuned.

Today also marks the anniversary of the first national U.S. holiday, in commemoration of the centennial of George Washington's inauguration. I do not see that anyone observes this particular holiday anymore. Even though we now have more national holidays than we know what to do with, and if we add any more the government is going to be off more than it works -- oh, wait, that's already true -- personally I think we should revive this particular holiday. To me it makes much more sense to celebrate the day our first president became president than to celebrate, as we do, President's Day in February. That honors only the births of Lincoln and Washington, and they can hardly take credit for that.

But it would be nice to have my birthday off every year.

Q & A II

Q: Dear Prissy Princess,
My spouse insists on bringing up important topics for discussion at inopportune moments, such as when I am asleep. What do you recommend?
-Asleep and clueless

A: Dear Clueless in ZZZsville,
You did not say whether your spouse is a man or a woman, although I suspect it is a man. This is because a woman would have read all the marriage how-to books and know how important it is that she have her spouse's full attention when broaching matters of importance so that the two can discuss the topic rationally without distractions. Of course a man knows, without reading the books, that if he does this the discussion will never result in any favorable outcome for him, and therefore he chooses to talk with his spouse when she cannot actually participate in the conversation. From his point of view, she is much more likely to agree with something he proposes, such as purchasing a new Ford Super Duty pickup truck today, if she is in fact unable to disagree, such as might happen if she is asleep at the time.

Therefore I suggest that you never allow yourself to fall asleep. Of course this might present difficulties if you work, drive, have children, occasionally like to go out of the house, breathe, etc., but that seems a small price to pay to keep your spouse from committing some truly heinous purchase.

Alternatively, you could use your spouse's own strategy -- that is, find a time to discuss the topic that is inopportune for him. I suggest waiting until he falls asleep. Then say, "Dear, I'm ready to discuss that Super Duty truck now...Dear?" The next time he brings up the topic, tell him you tried to talk to him about it and, since he made no response, you assumed the issue was dead. If he doubts your sincerity, have a tape recording ready of you asking the question and him snoring.

Neither solution will bring much equality to your discussion of important matters, but at least you won't unexpectedly find a monster truck in your driveway.

Q&A

As yet another project deadline looms over the Prissy Princess this week, she is expected to go into Full Stress Mode, wherein she runs around the house (or, given space constraints, one room) pulling her hair and wishing she had gone into some other line of work, such as Caretaker of Turtles. This will likely curtail her ability to write much for this blog. Therefore this week's blog episodes will be in the popular Q&A format, which allows the Princess to tackle important issues to readers without having to think much. You won't want to miss a single episode!

Q: Dear Prissy Princess,
My husband sometimes makes incomprehensible remarks, like "V[sub J] is not equal to Q[sub J] but is equal to Y[sub 3] [sub 564] [sub 893285XQV]." All this talk about subs makes me hungry, and so I say something in return about "the tandem rotation of X[sub or pizza?]." My husband does not appreciate this. He says that he is not talking to me and his comments don't require a response from me. How can I tell when I am supposed to give a response or not?
-Confused sub spouse

A: Dear [sub spouse],
This is common among spouses in "higher math." They forget that those of us who barely passed "lower math" have no idea what they are talking about. I suggest that you make your husband a sign that says "No response required" for him to hold up during these times when he is just talking to himself. This will greatly benefit both of you: You will not feel pressured into joining a conversation you have no hope of ever understanding, and he will not feel that he is constantly in the middle of a bad comedy show. Of course, you may continue to make funny remarks under your breath. If your husband asks what you said, say sweetly, "Oh, I was just talking to myself, dear."

One other helpful point: If what he is saying contains single letters, such as Q, X, and J, he probably is not talking to you, unless you are talking about buying new clothes and his response includes the letters N and O.

Survey results

I'm sure you've all been breathlessly awaiting the results of our blog survey from last week. I know I have. But since it seems that no one else is going to do all the analyzing and making up -- I mean reporting -- of the findings, I guess I had better take a stab at it myself.

I should state up front that I have, in an effort to enhance the accuracy and scientificity of this report, contracted the services of my husband, whose higher math curriculum includes not only Fuzzy Logic but also Asymptotic and Perturbation Analysis. I felt that this expertise would contribute significantly to our understanding of the survey results, which indeed it did. Everything is more fuzzy now than it was before, and we are definitely more perturbed after trying to pronounce "perturbation" (and also trying to figure out whether "scientificity" is really a word).

But on to our findings. One obvious finding, which you all no doubt noticed, was that someone did not answer the final question, which means, statistically, that someone did not answer the final question. Now some purists might argue that we should throw the whole survey out because of this, which of course we will do after we have picked through it for other enlightening scientific data.

The other obvious finding from the survey is that 50% of you are underemployed. No, this was not a question on the survey, but good surveyists will design questions that really get at something other than what the question seems to be asking, such as whether respondents have a hidden cache of gold somewhere that they could be tricked into turning over to the surveyists.

So, the first question -- "How often do you read this blog?" -- was secretly trying to measure of how bored you all are. The astonishing finding that 50% read this blog when they don't have anything to do at work indicates that half of you are underemployed and should immediately be outsourced. On the other hand (this is the nice thing about statistics: you can twist them to make them more positive), the fact that the national underemployment rate is only 9.5% indicates that our readers are overachievers, at least in finding work that does not take full advantage of their talents.

Interestingly, no one responded that they read this blog only during El Nino seasons. This immediately raises an important scientific question: If El Nino refers to the Baby Jesus, who is La Nina? And why wasn't she on the survey?

Sometimes surveys reveal totally unexpected results. This one is no exception. According to the answers on the second question, no one believes that this is a nonfiction blog! This is one of those cases where it is tricky to tease out the possible meanings behind this response, but it would appear that it is due to respondents not remembering what "nonfiction" means. I would tell you, but I can't remember what it means either. It was the one thing consistently noted on my report cards by my teachers, beginning in elementary school and going right through college: "When told to identify a nonfiction book, student consistently chooses a mystery."

The other totally unexpected result was that 33% of respondents think this blog consists of blatant lies. Obviously, since no one could really believe this, these respondents must be under the impression that "blatant" means "false," as in "Is it a false lie that your husband made you wait until after the Super Bowl to call 911 about the carbon monoxide?"

Due to the overwhelmingly positive response to putting Joe in charge of our pitiful garden, effective immediately he will quit his job and devote himself full time to talking to the flowers. Maybe they have just needed a man's authoritative voice and manner of slipping them little treats they are not supposed to have.

No one agreed with the suggestion to hire an expert to overhaul our garden. This is good, because by the time we get finished paying the little chimney sweep guys to fix our chimney and furnace flue, there will be no money to pay someone to tell us not to water our flowers so much.

We sincerely thank you for participating in th the Second "Slightly Humorous" Blog Reader Survey. This concludes our scientific reporting of the results. If I come up with any further conclusions, I will report them in later posts. Or not. Depends on what my definition of "blatant lies" is.

Pottery spin

I sincerely apologize to any administrative professionals among us, as yesterday was National Administrative Professional's Day and NOT, as stated in yesterday's blog post, National Toddler's Day. I did not mean to imply that administrative professionals act like toddlers, although they might be tempted to sometimes, particularly when their boss is acting toddlerish.

But today's topic is neither toddlers nor administrative professionals. Today's topic is pottery. I'm sure you've seen those places where you can paint your own pottery. These establishments offer art experiences for those, like myself, whose art talents are restricted to paint-by-number, people whose stick-figure drawings of humans are virtually indistinguishable from their drawings of animals, except for the number of legs.

In school, everything I ever tried to sculpt or mold turned out looking like an ashtray. And we sculpted and molded a lot. Our house was littered with misshapen ashtrays I had made, even though no one in our family smoked. The other schools in our system had no money for things like art, gym, or music, because it was all being funneled into my school, in the express hope that I would graduate someday having made at least one thing in art class that did not look like an ashtray. Although the policy of spending public money on useless educational ideas has been fashionable for quite some time, this is where it got its start.

So these paint-your-own-pottery places are perfect for people like me. The piece is already formed for you, so all you have to do is paint it. And if that is beyond your abilities, they have an assortment of stencils, stickers, magazine pictures, etc., for you to decorate your Nutrasweet holder, lightswitch backplate, or toothpick holder with.

But people really do not go to these places because they need a new toothpick holder. What "Paint Your Own Pottery" really means is "Get Out of the House and Gossip With Your Friends." They therefore cater mostly to women who want to get out of the house for an evening, or to women who want their kids out of the house for the evening so they can have some peace and quiet.

The problem with this activity, although it gives you an excuse to have fun, is that you end up with this piece of pottery that you really don't know what to do with. And if you do this often, maybe, like me, your closets and boxes are filled with these self-painted pieces of pottery that you don't know what to do with, right next to all the gifts you get from your company or your husband's company with corporate advertising written shamelessly all over them.

Or you desperately try to find someone to take all these things you painted off your hands. No doubt my mother attempted a similar strategy with my youthful sculptures:

Mom to family friend: Delores, how would you like this colorful, um, fruit bowl? We know the artist personally.
Delores (nose wrinkling): Looks more like an ashtray.
Mom: I'll pay you $20 to take it.
Delores: It would look nice in the living room!

So when I was headed to one of these pottery painting places a few weeks ago for a ladies' night out, I was struck with a brilliant idea for what to do with the piece when I was finished with it. Since we were going to a wedding this summer, I suggested to Joe that we give my pottery piece as a wedding gift. "They always say you should give a personalized gift," I said. "What could be more personalized than something I've painted with my own hands?"

Now I have noticed that in a marriage, your brilliant ideas rarely strike your spouse as being brilliant. My spouse seemed to place this particular idea more in the category of "horrifying," something right up there with serving Purina Puppy Chow for dinner to the minister and his wife (not that I have ever come up with this idea).

"You can't do that," he said. "We like these people."

He had a point. Considering my artistic skills, it would be more appropriate to give something I'd painted as a gift to someone we do not like, something that says, "We never want to hear from you again."

And so I painted a coffee mug that already had "I Love You" engraved into it -- all I had to do was paint inside the letters and make a few Xs and Os around it -- and it actually continued to resemble a mug when I was done with it. When I brought it home and presented it to my spouse, he kissed me and gamely said he would be proud to use it. I still think it would make a perfect wedding gift, but he won't hear of letting it out of the house. He's so sweet that way.

So be assured that if you are getting married, and you invite us to your wedding, we will not give you some tacky, hand-painted gift that resembles an ashtray. We will give you a thoughtful, tasteful gift, chosen just for you, from our stash of corporate freebies Joe gets several times a year. In time, people will stop you asking why your duffel bags have "Campbell" emblazoned all over them.

Wait a minute, where have I heard that name recently...Campbell...didn't I see that on a wedding invita --

"Honey! I've got the perfect idea for a wedding gift!"

Toddlers 'R Us

This being National Toddler Day (not really, but who's to say for sure there isn't one? There's a National Sandwich Day), I paused to consider how similar to toddlers we are sometimes. We being the two of us, who are generally very mature, as you will see by the following comparison chart.

Toddlers	Us
Engage in parallel play, in which two toddlers are doing the same activity side by side without really interacting	-(Each sits at own computer in same room.) Honey, could you -- E-mail me.
Often use the word no to express independence	-Can I have the rest of this Kit Kat? NO!
Fond of the word mine to indicate belief that everything is theirs	-How about that donut? MINE! Can’t I even try it? MINE!
Territorial, not inclined to share	-Why does the blanket always end up on your side of the bed? Does not. Does too. GIVE ME MY BLANKET!
Assert their independence	-I’m going to knock out some walls in the basement. That’s what you think.
Getting better at feeding themselves, but spills should be expected	-What is this on your blue shirt?
Rapid mood swings	-Honey, is this a good time to -- never mind.
View themselves as center of world	-Could you wait 'til after the game to call 911 about the carbon monoxide?
Have difficulty remembering rules	-Did you say you didn’t want me to knock out some walls in the basement? -Is it black bears or brown bears you're supposed to play dead with?
Show strict adherence to routines	-We're 15 minutes late, and you're worried about MAKING THE BED??

A time to wail

This is a story about how I was thrilled to be around a screaming child at the library. Really.

Now, this is not how I usually feel when confronted with crying children in public. But it all depends on your perspective.

I was looking through the audio CDs (scholarly works like Dave Barry's Guide to Guys and The Cat Who Went Bananas) when a nearby child started to express, in no uncertain terms, his unhappiness with something. Maybe he did not want to listen to one more page of Goodnight, Moon. Maybe he was out of Cheerios. Maybe being a three-year-old stuck in a stroller with all those tempting book displays juuuust out of reach was finally too much for him. Whatever it was, it was enough to start him wailing.

And wailing. And wailing. I'm sure whatever the record is for a screaming child, this one shattered it. The parent acted as if she had no idea who this child was. I suspected she was used to this.

The screaming started to interfere with my reading of the cover of The Cat Who Went Bananas. And then it started to interfere with my sanity. All I could think was Be quiet, kid.

I read, "Has Koko the Siamese cat gone bananas, or will he help unravel the mystery of...."

"Wahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!" Be quiet, kid!

I began to imagine what Koko, the cat who went bananas, might do when confronted with a child who wouldn't stop screaming. I didn't think it would be pretty.

"WAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

BE QUIET, KID!

And then, blessedly, he was quiet. And the next second, my cell phone rudely rang into the silence.

It's a happy little tune, but in that setting it was as loud and obnoxious as the kid's yelling had been.

I scrambled frantically around in my purse, trying to find the phone, at the same time juggling The Cat and Dave and a couple of other CDs. And all the time the phone was singing, and I was thinking, The big, bad librarian is going to throw me out! She's going to march right over here -- I was less than three feet from the checkout counter -- and just yank my phone out of my purse and grind it to powder right here in front of everyone!

I have had a fear of librarians all my life. I don't know why. I was a meek kid who loved books, so I don't think I ever got in trouble in a library. But somehow I always knew there was the potential to get in trouble, even if I wasn't doing anything wrong.

As I fumbled for my phone, I realized there was one thing that could save me from the librarian's wrath. Keep crying, kid! Keep crying! I thought frantically.

And he did. Miraculously, beautifully, he began his screaming tirade again, loud enough so that even I couldn't hear the phone.

Now, lest you think that I somehow encouraged the child to continue his protests, I assure you that he was not within range for me to kick his stroller or lob War and Peace (137 CDs; Running time: a few decades) in his direction. I did not make faces at him, as my brother is wont to do to children in public when their parents aren't watching. I was completely innocent of any such influence.

But I could have kissed him as I finally turned off the phone.

Dad fixes things

It was always tricky asking my father to help fix something at my condo when I was single. Between the two of us, we were likely to make whatever was broken worse.

Once, one of the bi-fold closet doors came off the track. I could still open and close it, but it was like trying to zip a bulging suitcase. My father initially did not consider this a problem that needed his attention, but eventually, after several complaints from me, he took a look at it. There were trips to Home Depot to get "just the right part." More trips to take back "just the right part" and get one that was definitely the right part.

Despite our best efforts, the door never did work right after that. "It doesn't matter if it stays open all the time, does it?" he said, by way of comfort. He has never been as concerned about things that don't function like they should as about things that don't look nice, like his car having a teeny smudge on it. That is worthy of his instant attention.

After we had "fixed" the closet door, I asked my dad to take a look at a shelf that had fallen down in another closet. "While you're here," I said apologetically. The shelf had come completely out of the wall and collapsed in the middle of the night, depositing four phone books, three baskets of assorted mittens and hats and gloves, and two umbrellas all over the floor of the closet, and the racket it had made was worse than any nightmare I might have been having at the time.

"Hmmm," he said when he had opened the closet and surveyed the damage. "Well, do you really need that shelf?"

I just looked at him. "Okay, let's get to work," he said, sighing.

It should have been a simple matter to put the shelf back, but somehow we managed to turn it into a project more akin to splitting an atom. Like the closet door, this shelf never was quite the same after we tinkered with it, although at least it never fell again. At least while I was living there.

We cleaned up the mess -- our fix-it projects always produced an impressive amount of debris -- and my dad went to the kitchen to dump the dust we had created in the trash can. He was in there for quite some time, and I heard a variety of noises. I wondered vaguely why it was taking him so long to throw something in the garbage when I heard a small crrrakkk.

"What are you doing?" I called from the living room.

"Breaking the lid on your trash can," he said.

"If I'd wanted the lid broken, I could have done it myself," I said, coming into the kitchen.

"Well, I wasn't trying to break it. I was just trying to throw this stuff away." He looked from the broken piece of the trash can lid in his hand to the full dustpan in his other hand, then back to the broken piece. The lid was now permanently standing at attention, exposing all the food containers, paper towels, and discarded fix-it parts in the trash can. "Maybe I can fix it," he said.

"No, that's okay, Dad," I said hastily. "I think we've done enough fixing for one day."

After my dad had gone home, I went to Home Depot and bought a new trash can. Maybe my closet door would never close again, and maybe my shelf would always lean, but at least my trash would not be exposed.

A day off

We regret to announce that our usual Prissy Princess programming is canceled for today, owing to an impending visit from the Princess's sister. As the castle has not been cleaned in quite some time, that is occupying the Princess's attention right now. (She really MUST get a new cleaning service...or ANY cleaning service!) Until we return, please remember to take the survey located at left. The rabbit, ferret, and unidentified creature who created the questions eagerly await your input. And if they don't get it, they will NOT be happy. And then the castle will REALLY have to be cleaned.

The truth about donuts

This is one of those good news, bad news, and even more bad news topics. But as a service to our valued readers, we will try to at least end on some good news, even if we have to make it up.

Thinking it would bring me some comfort if I knew that I had been spared 73 g of trans fat when Joe ate the donut, that, at one point, had been designated for me, I checked out the nutrition stats at Dunkin' Donuts. The word "nutrition," as it relates to donuts, of course does not mean the same thing it does when used for broccoli. There really should be some FDA regulation against using the word "nutrition" to apply to something like donuts. There is no nutrition in donuts. But an exhaustive FDA study finally concluded that, although misleading, it sounds better than "artery-clogging stats."

NOTE: Here follows the good news about donuts, that is, if you like them. Out of a random sampling (consisting of the donuts I personally am on familiar terms with) of donut "nutrition" listed on the Web site, not one donut had any trace of trans fat! Of course my first thought upon this discovery was Joe didn't save me any trans fat grams at all by eating that donut himself! I am no closer to living to 100 than I would have been if he'd saved the donut for me. This quickly led to my second thought, which was Do I really want to live to 100? (Answer: Only if I get to eat a lot of donuts along the way.)

NOTE: This is the unfortunate, bad news about donuts. You may wish to avert your eyes from this paragraph and gaze instead, perhaps, on a glazed jelly donut sitting on your desk, and resume your reading with the next paragraph. Even though next to the label "trans fat"on my random sampling of donuts there is a big fat 0, if you look closely at the list of ingredients (which is an excellent exercise for ruining your day), you will see trans fat items lurking in there. So in this case, 0 doesn't really mean 0. This must be part of that New Math you hear about. Or Fuzzy Logic. Joe has studied that subject, but I don't recall his ever mentioning it in relation to donuts. That's the trouble with Higher Math People. They never apply anything they learn to real life.
Good news! Like me, you have probably lain awake at night worrying about this issue, so let me put your mind at ease without further delay: Dunkin' Donuts are completely crustacean-free. Yes. It says so right on the nutrition label. So we can all relax, knowing that there will be no claws poking out of our French Crullers. No doubt this happy development is due to the concerted efforts of groups like "Free the Crustaceans to Live as They Were Meant to Live," in conjunction with the "Not in MY Donut!" group. There are also no fish particles in these donuts. This is because there is absolutely nothing in a donut that is found in the natural world.

Oops! I promised we would end on a positive note. Despite all these negatives, despite the knowledge that somewhere, the Dunkin' Donuts man is working hard to curtail your lifespan even though he does not know you personally, the good news is that donuts still taste awesome. Unless your spouse beats you to them.

A man and his donut

I can't really blame him. After all, women are far more familiar with the hidden, dark powers of donuts than men. He couldn't have seen it coming.

Joe was only at Dunkin' Donuts for some coffee before his math class yesterday. Extensive caffeine intake is required for sitting through three hours of lecture delivered completely without words, at least any words recognizable to the general adult population: "l ´ m [0] p = Ï [x]."

His motives were pure. He had absolutely no intention of buying a donut. Not a glazed, creme-filled one. Not a nut-topped one. Just coffee.

But it was get-a-free-donut-with-your-coffee day. Even then, Joe -- mindful of diets and waists and the terrors of trans fat -- politely refused the offer and ordered a lone coffee.

Then, while the woman was getting his order, he came to his senses. It's a donut! And it's free! He was soon on his way with his coffee and a Bavarian Creme in tow.

As he drove to class, he comforted himself with the altruistic thought that well, I could share it with Holly.

But donuts are funny that way. They don't like to be ignored. They don't like to be saved and shared with someone else. They want your full attention. They have a bond with you, the person that bought them, and they are not going to let you hand them off to someone else. You have a duty -- nay, a calling -- to eat them yourself.

And so the Bavarian Creme worked on him, all the way to campus. Eventually, it helped him come to the logical conclusion that well, Holly can have a donut another time.

And he and the Bavarian Creme became one.

In the end, though, perhaps struck by a conscience still guilty from the Kit Kat incident last week, he did save some of his donut for me. He left me the donut powder all over his dark shirt.

Survey #2!

Our sources tell us that it is high time for another survey of our readers. The delay since the last one is due to an entire lack of ideas for interesting questions (or interesting answers, for that matter). So, to get around that, we have included questions that were generated by our local four-footed population, including a rabbit, a ferret, and one creature that would rather remain anonymous. You will find the questions at the left. Have fun, don't use a number 2 pencil, and please give us your honest opinion (unless that would hurt our feelings).

Two dollars, please

For Saturday night entertainment, you can do no better than your local Subway and furniture store. I imagine that retail managers have been telling their employees, "Look. The economy is tanking, consumer confidence is down. No one can afford to go out to eat or buy furniture. So, to lure people in here, we're going to have to step up the entertainment factor."

At least, this is what I imagine the employees at our Subway and furniture store have been told. How else to explain their behavior during our visit Saturday evening? (We also visited the grocery store that night, although an experience involving two children in line ahead of us and a container of beach balls so traumatized us that it is likely we will never be able to speak more about it).

At Subway, the kid behind the counter rang up my meal and said, "That's sixty-four dollars." Then he cracked up.

"Well, he's with me," I said, pointing to Joe behind me in line, "so I'll let him pay the sixty-four dollars." You're not the only one who can make a joke, I thought smugly.

When Joe got to the register, the kid added his meal price to mine and said, "That'll be a hundred and twenty-five dollars." So much for my smugness.

Then it was off to the furniture store. As you may know from reading this blog, one of my most favorite things is being accosted by salespeople whose job it is to badger you into buying all manner of extremely useless merchandise or, failing that, to engender such feelings of guilt as to ensure that you will never again enjoy a peaceful night's sleep in your life. So when Joe suggested we go to look at sofas, I said, "Sure, why not? I'm in a mood to have either my wallet or my self-esteem browbeaten tonight."

We actually made it safely past the first salesperson, but only because he was busy helping another couple. We were trying to decipher the dimensions of a leather sofa on the tag when we heard, "Are you being helped?"

Obviously the smart answer to this question, if you want to be left alone, is "yes," no matter if it is true or not. But feeling compelled to answer truthfully, we said no, then immediately went back to scrutinizing the tag, hoping this would give her a hint.

"Do you want to be helped?" the woman continued.

I appreciated her asking this, I really did. Not that it made me more inclined to let her help us.

"We're really just looking," I said with a smile, which meant "Please go away and do not ever try to talk to us again, unless you have free chocolate."

"That will be two dollars," the woman said.

"Ha, ha!" we laughed nervously.

"Or five dollars for the two of you," she said.

Boy, this place was turning out to be more masochistic than most.

But finally, she gave up the comedy routine and left us in peace. We read on the tag that the sofa was of "bi-caste leather" construction.

"What does that mean?" I said to Joe. He shrugged.

The woman was still in the vicinity, lurking, so Joe asked her about the bi-caste construction.

"Two dollars," she intoned.

We thought about asking for a roll of duct tape to put over our mouths in case we thought of any more brilliant questions. Instead, we wandered some more and found another bi-caste sofa. Joe sat down on it.

"Don't let them see you!" I hissed. "That'll be more than two dollars!" But the woman, mercifully, was nowhere in sight, so this one was free.

Although we were not there to look at beds, Joe could not resist trying out the memory foam mattress. I was apoplectic about this, lest the woman charge us the full price of the mattress just for lying on it, but miraculously we got by with that, too.

When we were finished, we carefully planned our exit strategy. We had to make it look like we were still looking at the merchandise, while slowly but inexorably making our way to the exit. So occasionally we stopped to look at something -- such as a fringed leopard-print lamp -- as if to tell any salespeople who might be observing our movements, "See! We are not leaving! We are still looking! We are not even thinking of leaving in the next 30 seconds!"

Once we had a straight shot to the door, we bolted. We felt, in some small measure, as though we had escaped undetected over the Berlin Wall.

And all without paying the four thousand, three hundred and sixty-two dollars we probably owed.

Relaxing with fir needles

After reading yesterday's blog post, Joe would like everyone to know that the peanut shell I found in our garden is not his. Not that anyone was suggesting it was, but being fully aware that anything that goes wrong tends to get blamed on the nearest male, he is taking no chances.

Now that we have taken care of that important business, let's move on to today's equally scintillating topic: taking a fir-needle bath.

This is just one of the highly respected, time-tested, firmly supported by the medical community (of some country that ends in "-stan") remedies for dizziness that I recently found on the Internet. The exact instructions, for people experiencing dizziness of unknown causes, were these:

"Once a week, take a 20-minute fir-needle bath followed by 30 minutes of rest."

You can certainly see why a period of rest is necessary after sitting in a bunch of poky needles. You may also need reverse acupuncture after following this regimen. Although the article I read didn't say so, I'm sure this remedy is effective for other ailments, such as a pathological need to get in touch with your inner pain centers.

Okay, I had a lot more to say about this dubious remedy, but after further investigation, I have discovered that a fir-needle bath does not involve going out to your local park and filling a wheelbarrow with pine needles and pouring them into your bathtub. It does involve adding oil of fir needle to your bath water.

But logical explanations have never stopped me from taking amusement wherever I can get it. Another purported remedy, this one for headache, dizziness, and "a tendency to fall backward," is to take "5-10 drops of mistletoe extract in liquid, three times a day for a couple of weeks." I'm thinking the part about falling backward is more of a result of the remedy than a symptom: If, in response to the mistletoe, your attractive spouse comes running to smother you with romantic kisses, you're in a perfect position to swoon into the person's arms.

But before we condemn all these remedies as mere humor blog fodder, let's remember that many of us have also pooh-poohed the use of magnets for ills ranging from poor blood circulation to low car mileage. But just yesterday I read that magnets are now showing great promise in medical studies for treating depression and migraines and probably fear of German shepherds. So we should be cautious in our ridicule of the fir-needle bath and mistletoe extract. In fact, I may just try that last one myself.

Is it spring already?

It's spring (not that you would know it by the weather here recently, but somewhere in the world it must be), and that means it's time for some advice on gardens. My advice is, don't have one.

Many of our neighbors' yards seem to have sprung right out of Better Homes and Gardens. They are awash in bold reds, yellows, blues, and purples. Delicate pink and white blossoms are bursting out on the trees.

My garden, by contrast, is something that would feature prominently in the Ugly Gardens Project. I lean more toward the earthy tones -- green, brown, that sort of thing. The "natural" colors of dirt, weeds, and a few struggling stems that have obviously, in the whole pollination thing, landed in a yard they never meant to land in. The sum total of things growing in my garden at present is as follows:

• 7 fragile, purple star-shaped flowers
  

• 479 nonfragile weeds

• A vast number of tall, brown things bearing a suspicious resemblance to dead sticks

• 1 peanut shell

In short, nothing in my garden at this moment has been put there by me, and nothing put there by me last year is anywhere to be seen. This is why smart people take up some other, more sensible hobby, like creating art from duct tape.

One of my neighbors, who is a master gardener, pointed out everything that was a weed in my garden and informed me that they all needed to go ASAP. "But I'm so successful at growing weeds," I protested. I also pointed out that at least the weeds had flowers on them, which was more than you could say for anything I'd actually planted.

Nevertheless, worried that someone would soon be calling Gardeners Against Weeds (GAW) over the state of our yard, I tackled some of the 479 weeds. I got about 11 of them. In Michigan, I never had weeds this early. Okay, maybe I did and just ignored them. Here, they sprout up in February and last until December, when everyone else is going to and fro with boatloads of cheer and happy poinsettias and fragrant pine trees, and my yard still has weeds gasping out threats of returning in a few months 17-fold. Which they have.

I think I am much better suited to a northern climate with a shorter growing season, something on the order of Iceland. Or possibly to a desert in the south. I was talking to a young man the other day from Arizona who, as a youth, was pressed into forced labor in his mother's vast midwestern garden. He is of the opinion that the rock gardens common to Arizona are far superior to yards with soil in which one must plant and nurture things. The sight of happy daffodils and daisies swaying in the gentle breeze -- which we have here in Maryland in abundance, although not in my garden -- still brings back disturbing memories of his chain gang days.

I ran across a book last night whose title struck a chord with me: The $64 Tomato: How One Man Nearly Lost His Sanity, Spent a Fortune, and Endured an Existential Crisis in the Quest for the Perfect Garden (if I don't have it completely right, you get the idea). Except for the tomato part -- and the man part -- I could have written this book (or at least the title). Far from desiring the perfect garden, though, my aim now is only to tip the delicate balance between weeds and flowers in favor of the flowers. And to find out if anything can be grown from a peanut shell.

The Book of Rules

I must say that I was impressed with the state of our house when I came home from the writer's workshop. After three days of my absence, the house actually looked somewhat better than it usually does. This was due, in part, to the fact that Joe does not bother with things like utensils, plates, etc. when I am not here, and probably also to the fact that I issued several pointed hints about my expectations for housekeeping before I left. But still, it was an impressive feat. I should go away more often.

But I got a nasty surprise yesterday when I sought out my secret chocolate stash. Actually, it's not so secret; since Joe doesn't typically eat chocolate, I sometimes hide it in plain sight. In this case, I had half a Kit Kat bar in the fridge. Or I had had it. When I went to look for it yesterday, it wasn't in the door where I had left it. In something of a chocolate panic, I frantically searched the entire refrigerator for my Kit Kat. It wasn't behind the juice, or in the vegetable bin, or behind the cottage cheese. It had been the last of my chocolate stash, and I spent the rest of the day in withdrawal.

Still, I didn't really think Joe had eaten it. I thought perhaps I had eaten it at some point and just forgot. When he came home, I casually asked if he had seen my Kit Kat.

"Oh, I saw it, all right," he said with a grin. "It tasted pretty good, too!"

I stared at him. "You really shouldn't have done that," I said quietly. "That was a Major Infraction."

"It was?" he said with some surprise. "But it's not in the Book of Rules."

"It's one of those things you're just supposed to know not to do," I said.

"Ahhh," he said, "it's in the Oral Rules...I'm not as familiar with those."

"I suggest you start becoming familiar with them," I said dryly. "Besides, it's covered under the 'Don't eat the last of something without asking your spouse first' rule, and that's in the Book of Rules." This had been, in fact, one of the very first rules he'd learned as a new husband. At the time, he'd only needed one lesson.

Wisely, he did not point out that I hadn't been here to ask about the Kit Kat.

I took pity on him. "You can make up for this Major Infraction, in some small way, by following the rule of 'Always replace something you took that lawfully belonged to your spouse.' "

It remains to be seen whether he chooses to follow that rule.

The same day, I read a column about a pair of books titled "Don'ts for Wives" and "Don'ts for Husbands." Originally published in 1913 by Blanche Ebbutt (whose name, in comparison to my maiden name, makes me feel actually grateful that my maiden name rhymed with Dolly Parton), they have been reprinted for the current generation of clueless spouses. The books are small, and the columnist writing about them was of the opinion that a book that is smaller than 3 x 5 cannot possibly begin to contain all the things husbands shouldn't do. I haven't read the books, but I certainly have a suggestion to be added to the one for husbands if it's not already there.

And the next time I go away, I will make sure to eat up my chocolate before I leave.

To whom do I make my complaint?

I don't like to complain, but my stay at the hotel during the writing workshop was pretty boring. Some of the other participants had really exciting hotel experiences, which means they now have a lot more to write about than I do.

One woman, for instance, was awakened in the dead of the night by an unhuman scream outside her window. Turns out that a raccoon, who was nesting in a tree near the window, had evidently missed a branch and landed on the window instead. Two beady, terrified eyes. Claws screeching down the window. The woman's heart thumping. The same thing the next night. What more could a humor writer (or horror writer) want?

But no such luck for me. Not only did I not have a raccoon visit me in the night, I did not find an enormous spider in my shower (or even a small one). When I turned on the shower faucet, disgusting brown water did not come out. My linens were everything one could hope for -- fluffy, cozy, clean. The lights all worked, as did the refrigerator and iron. My neighbors did not loudly share any personal details about their love lives. I did not discover a severed finger under my pillow. Yawn.

I wish I knew what went wrong. Should I have tipped the bellman more? Who do I complain to about my boring stay?

This is not to say that I didn't enjoy my stay at all. I was thrilled, for instance, to be able to use my hair dryer on high. If I were to attempt this at home, in our 1840s rowhouse with bad wiring, our entire row of homes would descend into darkness for a week. At home I must keep my dryer on low, putzing along ("behaving in an idle manner," says my dictionary about "putzing") at about 2 watts. This does give me plenty of time to muse on the more important things in life, such as what should be done to people who wear dark socks with white shoes. But at the hotel, where I could use the entire 1875 watts, I exulted in the blast of air like a dog with its head out the car window. In fact, I kept the dryer on way past when my hair was actually dried, just for the fun of it.

Also at the hotel, there was both hot and cold water in the shower, allowing me to adjust it to the perfect temperature. Imagine! Ours, for some reason known only to itself, will only spout out hot water, and that somewhat grudgingly. I suppose this is better than only spouting out cold, but it does get uncomfortable after a while, and you come out feeling like you've been through the dishwasher. The good thing is that you know you are 100% germ free.

But perhaps the best thing about my hotel room was the sight that first greeted me when I stepped into the bathroom. There, spread out like a never-ending banquet table, was an enormous counter. Free of clutter. And all mine!

At home, of course, our bathroom counter space is approximately equivalent to the size of a soap dish. This explains why I am forever fishing things out of the sink and the wastebasket and why I would be fishing them out of the toilet if we weren't obsessive about keeping the lid closed at all times. When we first moved in, I wanted to buy some sort of rolling cart, like they have at the hair salon, to keep all my stuff on. The only reason I didn't was that there was no more room to store the cart than there was room on the bathroom counter.

So you can see that all this space and working faucets and adequate outlets at the hotel was a big deal to me. I guess I will have to be content with that. But the next time I go to a conference, I'll be sure to ask for a room with a raccoon view.

Return from Funnyville

I am fresh from the Erma Bombeck Writer's Workshop, where there were 332 participants. That is 331 more than I am used to being with on any given work day, so you can imagine that I am quite worn out. The collective funny bones were something to experience.

One speaker gave us a nifty formula for writing about something that you are still coming to terms with. Her example was a student who, soon after being in a terrible car accident, was endeavoring to write about the experience. I figured it would apply equally well to my search for bottled water at the workshop. That was pretty devastating, too, at least for me.

The speaker said that this formula neatly tricks your left brain into silence, thereby allowing your right brain to bash it into submission. No, actually, it's supposed to allow your right brain the freedom to let the creativity flow without being stopped by the left-brain logic police. And believe me, my left brain needs to be tricked into shutting up sometimes.

We had to start with some decision we had made recently, any decision, such as the decision to come to this particular session rather than an inferior one down the hall. We then wrote down a series of experiences leading from this decision, in the form "This is a story about..." or "This is a poem about..." Since my left brain nearly has a stroke at the thought of composing a poem, I elected to start my statements with "This is a story about..." The decision I chose to write about was my near-fatal decision to not take my own bottled water to the sessions on Saturday.

My Quest to Find Bottled Water at the Workshop

This is a story about deciding not to take a bottle of water in my tote bag to the Saturday sessions, sure that I had seen some free ones on the first floor of Kenny Union where the breakfast buffet was set up.

This is a story about how wrong I was about free bottled water being provided at the breakfast buffet.

This is a story about how I climbed to the second floor, somewhat slowly due to dehydration setting in, to see whether there were any bottles of water up there, outside the lunch room.

This is a story about being disappointed a second time.

This is a story about giving up on finding free water and descending into the basement, parched and fast approaching incoherence, to locate a vending machine rumored to be down there.

This is a story about being overjoyed to find the vending machine with water for the bargain price of $1.00.

This is a story about attempting, several times, to feed, cajole, and shove my dollar bill into the slot to obtain my precious bottle of water.

This is a story about having my attempts repeatedly aborted by a piece of paper that was stuck in the bill slot, and about breaking down into sobs at this failure.

This is a story about recovering from my sobs to scrounge around in my wallet for four quarters.

This is a story about finding three quarters.

[Interlude for more sobs, which we will refrain from describing, as the experience was very painful.]

This is a story about telling jokes to passersby in the hope of gaining one more quarter.

This is a story about how much I have yet to learn about telling jokes, in public, for money.

This is a story about dragging myself from drinking fountain to drinking fountain -- in the basement, on the first floor, in the science building -- until I finally reached the room where my next session was being held.

This is a story about how I saw hundreds of bottles of water sitting on the table in front of the room.

This is a story of a mirage, and of being doomed to disappointment. And great thirst.

A ha-ha recharge

The Prissy Princess, having run out of interesting things to poke fun at in her blog, sets off Thursday for the Erma Bombeck Humor Writer's Workshop in Ohio to steal other writers' material. Just kidding! But she does look forward to having a good time, meeting other humor writers, and, for once, not falling asleep during a keynote speech.

She leaves the castle in the capable hands of the Gallant Hero, who will no doubt take advantage of the Princess's absence to bust up some walls in the basement and engage in other manly Hero pursuits.She only asks that the castle not be completely in shambles at her return, and that all the laundry be properly stowed in the hamper instead of being used as bedroom adornments.