because I'm all about customer satisfaction

Here are some options for blog posts wherein I would discuss:

1. why I believe "good morning" is an oxymoron
2. my serious struggles to become a devoted David Cook fan ( the aloneness I feel which comes from NOT liking his "Always Be My Baby" performance)
3. why Brooke should really just Stop. Talking. Back.
   
4. dressing to survive the first track meet of the year, or
5. how not to be deceived when the sun is shining but the temperature is only 56
6. the joys of being able to open the windows for the first time of the season today (yay!)
7. how I stay green the old fashioned way -- a primer on using the clothesline
8. Rules of Our House -- starting with "toilets have lids for a reason"
9. remembering birthdays of long-ago friends, and other useless skills I possess (see Corie's "futile abilities")
10. what I learned at the life expectancy calculator, or how it feels to be 18,361 days old
11. If you want me to be a good nurse, here's how to be a good patient (alternate title -- "If you won't take my advice, you lose your prerogative to complain.")
    

Voting lines are now open. But remember these are 866 numbers, not 1-800 numbers, so please dial carefully.

of all the things I've lost, I miss my mind the most

There are many things about myself that I would like to change. One of my most disturbing , well, disturbances is my obsession and preoccupation with lost things.

I HATE to lose things. When something gets lost a panic rises up in my esophagus and my stomach clenches up in nauseous knots and my breathing gets shallow and my eyebrows squinch together and my scalp constricts and I break out in boils. And I simply
can. not. move. past. the lost thing and its mysterious whereabouts.

I then need everyone in my family to join the search. I call Corie. I interrupt Jim's work. I view all my children through the suspicious lens of accusation. I harbor ill will toward my dog. A deep resentful loathing begins to percolate toward all mankind because I'm sure that someone somewhere knows where my thing is. Even if they aren't guilty of theft, they're surely guilty of irresponsibility, or of (worse!) ambivilence.

All these symptoms manifest themselves even if the lost item is the lid to the milk jug, or my grocery list. But they intensify in direct correlation to the perceived preciousness of the lostee.

So.

I can't find the pashmina scarf that I was given as a gift the morning we left Korea. It was beautiful and special and irreplaceable.

I've spent the better part of the day straining my brain, trying hard to remember the last place I wore it, calling the hospital and Panera, interrogating my kids, scouring the house.

I'm just sick.

And you know what? The little sanctimonious comments that my conscience keeps chirping in my ear are not exactly helping. I know it's just a thing. I know I am not supposed to hold tightly to the things of this world. I know.

But I would sure be happy if I could just find it.

Need help -- reely, I do

This is my kitchen phone.



I love my kitchen phone. It's red, and it makes me happy. Plus it never has a dead battery. It never gets misplaced. It works when the electricity is out. And I love to see the confused looks on the faces of my kids' friends when they ask to use the phone and I point to it. Most of them have never dialed a phone before.

I don't like my kitchen phone's cord, however. This is a portion of the cord.

Its only redeeming value is that it's long, and I can reach all the way to the stove with it -- or into the dining room. But it is always tangled, always under foot, always getting caught in these cupboard doors. Don't look at the cupboard doors, by the way, because they haven't been painted in about seventeen years and they're nasty.

This is a leash of Sadie's.

I don't like this leash, but I do like the reeling function of it. You can pull the leash out (or Sadie can), and it reels right back in. My vacuum cleaner has a cord reeler. When I'm done vacuuming, I push a little button and the cord slurps right back in. My hair dryer has a cord reeler. When I'm done drying my hair, I push a button and the cord just zooooops right back in.

So here's what I've been thinking. I need a phone cord reeler. And for the first time in my life, my amazing Fix-It Hubby has come up empty-handed. He ordered a little gadget from eBay but it just didn't have the zooopy slurpiness I require in a phone cord reeler. And it made the answering machine fall off, and it just was generally unsatisfactory in about eleven different ways.

He is claiming that what I need can't be accomplished, even though I have pointed to the dog leash, vacuum cleaner, and hair dryer as examples of Reel Perfection in motion.

I don't get it. I don't feel like my reel needs are out of line. It seems to me to be a matter of finding or creating a simple machine with reely capabilities.

I'm open to suggestions.