If you haven’t noticed by now, America, and California especially, are in a steep decline. The systematic decimation of public education, rampant unemployment, and the continued government fatwa on the middle class have changed our lives. Most of us are scared. Many of us have lost our homes and savings. Luckily, however, we are still alive. And despite the hell, we want to have a good time. And as I have discovered, you don’t need a lot of money to have fun. Below find some helpful suggestions on how to make the most out of the end times.

Number One: Go off-roading—right outside your door. You don’t need to find open spaces in the country anymore. Most of our highways and city streets provide enough rough terrain to satisfy the most avid daredevil. Those bus-sized potholes provide perfect jumps for dirt bikers. Hit them fast enough and you can leap cars instead of splitting lanes. Not into motorcycles? Take your Jeep out onto the highway and go crazy. Hint: don’t forget your neck brace.

Number Two: Create collages and artwork with your collection notices and mortgage default papers. Express your outrage and enrich the world at the same time. Make a Statue of Liberty out of your old property tax bills. For those in warmer climes, build a paper snowman at Christmas from your court documents. Or if you want to earn some money, fashion a Virgin Mary out of your unemployment check stubs, then call up The Enquirer and report that the stubs assembled themselves overnight after you prayed for a job that actually paid enough to feed your family. Then set up a viewing in your living room. Ka-ching!

Number Three: Watch your neighbor’s TV. With the advent of the new giant flatscreen TVs, this is easier than it used to be. All you need to do is walk around at night and find a neighbor who watches the programs you enjoy. And one who likes to keep their drapes open. Best choice is an older neighbor or one who is in a rock band—preferably both—people who are hearing impaired and must turn up the volume of the TV to deafening levels. Bring a folding chair, a cooler of cheap beer and a big bag of popcorn, then stake out a nice place on their lawn and you’re set. The neighbor pays for the electricity, the cable, and the pay-per-views. Hint: buy a universal remote control. When your neighbor leaves to retrieve more snacks, surf away. Important: remember the station they were watching or you might blow your cover.

Number Four: Hang out in comfy air-conditioned bank waiting areas. Banking institutions were the ones who took your house away from you. They owe you. Normally, they have TVs and water coolers. Many serve coffee. One bank I know serves espresso and cookies on the last Friday of the month. Bring your book, let the kids make forts out of the chairs and have a nice day. When they ask why you’re there, tell them you’re waiting for someone. Which is the truth. You’ve been waiting for someone in the banking industry to wake up and stop foreclosing on hardworking people’s homes. Hint: make sure to rotate banks so the bank employees don’t become too suspicious. Unless you want to make a statement. Then bring your tent and put up a sign that says: Camp Foreclosure. They may throw you in jail, but at least you’d have a solid roof over your head and guaranteed food.

Number Five: Use public spaces as your new parkland. Since many of the state and city parks have closed, we must be creative. We can all learn a lot from the homeless. Landscaped medians on thoroughfares, courthouse employee picnic areas, lawns in front of city hall, there are many areas open to the public that can serve as a great place to get outside and enjoy the sunshine. Hint: if you dress nicely, you can hang out anywhere.

Number Six: Get advice from your kids on creating new family games. After all, this is the generation that plays games at school like: Throw The Deflated Ball From The 70s Through The Broken Window, Name That Mold Strain, and Dodge The Falling Ceiling Tiles.

Number Seven: Go to a place with lots of employees and pretend you work there. This shouldn’t be too hard because everyone at large businesses is pretending to work. The trick is getting inside the buildings. Attach your picture to a white plastic card, add some generic text above it, laminate the whole thing, and secure it to your coat. When you approach the door, simply follow people inside. Then hang out in the break room or around the water cooler and strike up conversations. Drink the coffee, eat the doughnuts and surf the net in empty cubicles. Watch movies in conference rooms. Scavenge for lunch meeting leftovers. Lounge on the nicely manicured lawns in the outside picnic areas. Warning: at some point, people may notice you never do anything and you may be mistaken for a manager. Be prepared to say things like: “Just gotta push through the end of the quarter.” “Put that on the agenda for the afternoon meeting.” “I’ll take that to the higher ups.” You could do this for months and no one would catch on. Hint: to be invisible, men should wear khakis and a light blue button-down shirt. For women, a dark skirt or pants and a white top.

Number Eight: Discover creative new ways to work out. Just because you can’t afford your gym membership, and all the recreation areas are closed, doesn’t mean you can’t get some great exercise. Try the 5K Run From The Debt Collector. Or play Hide and Seek with the Process Server. How about Chase the American Dream? That game will ensure you a long run with no end in sight.

©2011, Janet Periat

It has come to my attention that America is falling into a pit of stupidity and ignorance. To that end, I have developed the following test. Remember, this is only a test. Don’t feel badly if you fail miserably. I had to use Google to search for most of the answers.

1. Barack Obama is ______.

a)     The Anti-Christ.

b)    A Muslim.

c)     The president of the United States.

d)    The refrain from a popular song from the ’50s.

e)     A man born in a foreign country and snuck into the U.S. by al-Qaida.

2. Bank of America is ______.

a)     A bank.

b)    A criminal organization.

c)     A black hole where poor people’s money disappears.

d)    A place that charges you money for keeping your money.

e)     All of the above.

3. The Tea Party is ________.

a)     A group of people with many complaints, but no solutions.

b)    A performance by a male dancer in a gay bar.

c)     A group of white people who fear … uh, everything.

d)    A festive event involving cake and crumpets.

e)     All of the above.

4. Which of the following is (are) not in the Bill of Rights?

a)     Freedom of speech, religion and the press, and the right to assemble.

b)    Right to be protected from people who think differently than you.

c)     Right to have no single entity controlling a state’s water supply.

d)    Right to be protected from having to house soldiers of war.

e)     Right to wear white after Labor Day.

5. Which of the following people have not been president of the United States?

a)     Zachary Taylor.

b)    Chester Arthur.

c)     Archibald Leach.

d)    William Powell.

e)     Andrew Johnson.

6. Which of the following wars have been fought over oil?

a)     Operation Prime Chance.

b)    Operation Odyssey Dawn in Libya.

c)     The Iraq War.

d)    The Persian Gulf War.

e)     All of the above.

7. Which of the following statements are false?

a)     There is a toxic zone the size of Switzerland in Russia that surrounds the Chernobyl Nuclear Facility where no humans are allowed for the next 275 years.

b)    Newt Gingrich has his skin and hair artificially whitened with bleach.

c)     In 2007, Corporate CEOs earned 344 times the pay of the average worker. In 1961, CEOs earned 42 times the pay of the average worker.

d)    Sarah Palin was born in Canada.

e)     Rush Limbaugh is the stage name of William Cockburn. Born to a family of circus performers, Cockburn’s first stage appearance was in 1962. He rode on the trunk of an elephant during the opening act of the show.

8. Which of the following statements are true?

a)     Kazakhstan has a higher literacy rate than the United States.

b)    Most U.S. citizens have never heard of Kazakhstan.

c)     The U.S. has the highest crime rate of all the developed nations.

d)    The U.S. has the highest percentage of gun ownership in the world.

e)     The U.S. has the highest obesity rate in the world.

9. Which of the following is not a power of Congress?

a)     Promoting science and the arts by ensuring fair copyright laws.

b)    Promoting the agendas of large multi-national corporations.

c)     Ensuring that roads are built and maintained for the postal system.

d)    Declaring war on poor people.

e)     Outlawing the usage of biodegradable forks in the congressional cafeteria.

10. What’s the average net worth of a U.S. senator?

a)     3 million dollars.

b)    5 million dollars.

c)     10 million dollars.

d)    14 million dollars.

e)     20 million dollars.

11) What’s the net worth of the wealthiest U.S. senator?

a)     50 million dollars.

b)    75 million dollars.

c)     132 million dollars.

d)    175 million dollars.

e)     265 million dollars.

ANSWERS:

1)    Are you out of your freakin’ mind? C is the answer. He’s the president, you dopes. He was born in AMERICA. He’s an AMERICAN. And he’s CHRISTIAN. Sheesh.

2)    e. All of the above. Bank of America is a scourge and screwed my family out of 75 grand. And yes, I have proof. But not enough money to fight them.

3)    e. All of the above. Except the act the dancer performs is called “tea-bagging.”

4)    b, c, and e. But I really wish “c” were part of them. Multi-national corporations are buying up water rights everywhere. Beware!

5)    c and d. Archibald Leach was actor Cary Grant’s real name. William Powell starred in the Thin Man movies of the 1940s.

6)    e. All of the above. Actually most wars have been to “protect American interests abroad.” Amazing how “our” oil got underneath “their” sand.

7)    b, d and e. I wish “a” were false. I wonder how many Switzerland-sized pieces of land we’ll turn into dead zones here in America before we wake up and realize that nuclear energy is the most dangerous and stupid way we’ve developed to boil water. Hint: Don’t buy land in San Luis Obispo or San Diego.

8)    All are true. At least we can read the print on our boxes of Twinkies and ammo.

9)    All are powers of Congress. Well, maybe not technically, but these are still true, even though the fork issue is still being debated.

10) d. 14 bloody million freakin’ dollars. When the average net worth of an American citizen is $86,000. Yeah, these guys sure can relate to the rest of us.

11)  e. $265,629,996. Herb Kohl, a Democrat from Wisconsin, earned this in 2008. How’d he make all that money in freakin’ Wisconsin? And shouldn’t he be a Republican?

How did you do? Do you feel smart now? Stupid? Enlightened? Or overloaded?

I feel e) All of the above.

© 2011 Janet Periat

An ominous sleight-of-hand is occurring all over Supermarket Land. Food products and packaging are slowly getting miniaturized.  For years manufacturers have been progressively selling us less product for more money. But over the past two years, the shaving-of-contents has been getting as obvious as America’s prodigious waistlines. Maybe the manufacturers are on a quest to help us with our obesity. But I don’t think so. I think they’re ripping us off. If they keep up this pace, pretty soon, we’ll all be buying empty boxes.

Take national brands of canned tuna, for example. Have you noticed that the old six-ounce can is now a five-ounce can? You could say this was an effort to save us from extra mercury poisoning, but the truth is more sinister. They are trying to STARVE US. I used to be able to make two, normal-sized tuna sandwiches from one can. Now I can make only a sandwich and a half from their new anemic can. What? Did they think we wouldn’t notice that we didn’t have enough tuna to make two normal sandwiches? Aside from sandwich making, look at any other recipe that calls for tuna. The directions state to use “one six-ounce can of tuna.” Well, that only leaves Trader Joe’s tuna because they still have the decency to sell their tuna in six-ounce cans. Forget Chicken-of-the-Sea (which is an apt name for a company that rips off their customers but aren’t upfront about it) or Starkist or any of the major brands, they’ve all gone to five-ounce cans. Bastards!

Not only have they stolen tuna from me, this Christmas the food people really crossed a line when they messed with my sugar. I was shopping at my local Safeway and saw sugar was on sale. I wanted it for holiday baking, but was concerned about picking up the five-pound bag because I’d recently thrown out my shoulder and could barely pick up a letter without excruciating pain. Still, I needed sugar. But something about the bag looked wrong. It looked smaller. Since my eyesight is going and I had just ordered glasses, I assumed it was my vision that had the problems. When I picked up the bag, I felt no pain, surprising me. At first, I thought I’d miraculously healed in the three-block drive to the store. I thought I had somehow gotten stronger. More buff. The bag seemed much lighter than normal. And my entire hand fit around the bottom of the package. I checked the weight printed on the bottom of the bag and gasped. Then snarled. Four pounds. After a zillion freakin’ years of selling sugar in five-pound bags, they shaved off a pound and didn’t expect us to notice? Thieves! Charlatans! Again, you could spin this and say they were worried about the over-sugaring of America, but we know better. They are ripping us off!

I continued on my unmerry way to the cereal aisle, always good for a little blood boiling. The cereal aisle has been a thorn in my side for years. Cereal manufacturers been playing fast and loose with packaging, contents and prices since I can remember. I’ve watched the price of Cocoa Krispies go from about a buck a box in the late seventies to four bucks plus over the past couple years. Since I am addicted to Cocoa Krispies, I grit my teeth and pay their price. But this time when I picked up the box, it looked strange. Thinner and taller. Again, I attributed the change to my eyesight, but when I got home and put the box next to my nearly-empty Cocoa Krispies box, I couldn’t believe it. The new box was nearly a full inch thinner. For the same price. And because it’s so thin and tall, the box is super unstable and keeps falling over. So where the hell are they going to go from here? I’m sure they have a team of engineers working on this stability issue. “Bob? We need a cereal box the thickness of a National Geographic, but as tall as the previous box. And it needs to stand on its own. Maybe we ought to play around with weighted bottoms. You think the idiots will notice?” You know they must refer to their consumer base as morons and idiots because how else would they expect to pull this Houdini-disappearing-contents trick on us. Rotten jerks!

Last week, I was back at Safeway, picking up OJ for Frank. After taste-testing many brands years ago, Frank chose Tropicana. And only Tropicana. No other OJ will do. So I reached for the half-gallon container and happened to glance down at the contents labeling. 59 ounces. WHAT? I looked again. The label still said 59 ounces. I nearly screamed. Now not only did they think I was so stupid I didn’t know that there were 64 ounces in a half-gallon, but they stole five ounces of orange juice from me and I hadn’t even bought the carton yet! So I didn’t. I shoved the box back in the refrigerated display and searched for a brand that still sold me a half-gallon of juice. Of course, Frank was not happy with the Minute Maid and so now, every time I buy the stupid Tropicana Rip-off Juice, my blood-pressure rises so high, my eyeballs throb.

Where will this all end? What’s next? Five-packs of beer and soda? One stick of gum per package? A single, sad, lonely Cocoa Krispy taped to the bottom of a giant, paper-thin box?

And how will all this product-shaving effect our vernacular? Will we be saying things like: “Hey, check out that dude’s awesome five-pack abs.” “Honey, could you pick up 59 ounces of milk for me?”

I can see the future when product miniaturization hits the fast food industry. “Hey, can you super-shrink that order for me?” “Sure,” the pimply-faced order taker replies. “Would you like fry with that?”

©2011, Janet Periat

When I take my daily walks, two smells are more prevalent than any. Fresh cut grass, you guess? No. Roses? Fresh air?  No and no. The two things that permeate the atmosphere in San Mateo? Bounce and car exhaust. I much prefer the latter.

We live in a Bounce-scented world. My friends smell like Bounce, their houses smell like Bounce, their animals smell like Bounce and their children smell like Bounce. Bounce is now the ubiquitous odor of modern society. Everywhere I go, all I smell is Bounce.

Several years back, Frank banished Bounce from our house. Citing early smell aversion therapy—Frank worked in a candle factory in college—he cannot tolerate heavy manufactured scents. When we got together, I was pretty enamored of Bounce. The product was rather recent at the time—carbon dating puts that somewhere between the Paleolithic Age and the Bronze Age—and I thought it was a nifty idea. No more gummed up fabric softener reservoirs in the washing machine, simply throw a little snippet of fabric in the dryer and voila! Soft, unwrinkled, great-smelling clothes. Frank, however, hated the smell of Bounce and pointed out that when using an entire sheet of the product, it coated our towels with a chemical that repelled water. Which isn’t exactly helpful when trying to dry off after a shower. So he started using half-sheets of Bounce and all was well.

Then came the day Frank refused to throw that half-sheet in the dryer. He’d finally had it. He didn’t want to smell like Bounce, he didn’t want the house smelling like Bounce, nor his towel. So he stopped using the product. I didn’t notice at first. By the time I did, I no longer cared. My towels worked better and the laundry detergent took out the bad smells, so who needed the damn fabric softener, anyway?

However, as we began to notice, everyone else we knew continued to use the product. But at that point, we didn’t care. We lived in a forest with very few neighbors. Smoke from wood stoves was the smell scourge of that neighborhood.

Five years ago, we moved to San Mateo and were inundated by all new smells. Car exhaust, mowed lawns, diesel fumes from El Camino Real, along with the sweet smells of my backyard: roses, orange blossoms and the piney scent of our redwood tree. When the wind shifts, we are attacked by McDonald’s fryer. Mmmm, filet-o-fish sandwiches and fries. When the wind goes the other way, the pizza place and Chinese restaurant compete for our attention. Sometimes the corner doughnut shop smells like it’s in our living room. But mostly what we notice is the smell of Bounce. All our neighbors use it. All one hundred thousand of them.

I can’t help but mourn the loss of non-man-made scents. The prevalent odors in modern society today are manufactured. Retailers use specially designed scents to attract shoppers. Hotels scent their lobbies. Public restrooms are cherry-smelling nightmares. Turn on the tube and Glade wants you to plug some gizmo into your electrical outlet that lets off timed bursts of “fresh scents.” Gak. When I was a kid, “air fresheners” came in a can and were used exclusively in the bathroom. And I have to say, even as a kid, I preferred the smell of crap over artificial rosy-smelling crap. “Air fresheners” don’t freshen the air. They pollute it with manufactured nastiness.

I grew up in San Mateo, and thankfully, the air is less polluted than when I was a kid. I no longer smell the scent of fresh DDT in the air—which also used to be ubiquitous—nor is the car exhaust anywhere near as toxic nor prevalent. I am reminded of this every time a classic car drives by and leaves me in a cloud of unburned gasoline and oil. But there has been a huge uptick in Bounce and other artificial smells. And I hate them all.

My hatred of Bounce came to a head this week when I received two shipments of pre-owned pants I bought off of eBay. When I opened the first package, a nuclear-powered blast of Bounce annihilated me. The lady must have used a whole freakin’ roll in the dryer. Instead of buying pants, I ended up with two large pants-shaped Bounce air fresheners. I swear, if I put these two pairs of pants into a packed gymnasium of sweaty basketball players, no one would smell anything but Bounce.

My nostrils stinging, I immediately put the pants in the wash. When I withdrew them, there was almost no change in the smell. Since the pants are brightly colored, I can’t risk washing them too much or the design will fade. So I hung them up in my bathroom to dry. Now my entire house smells like Bounce. The smell pervades everything. It has wafted into the kitchen, the back bedroom and Frank’s office. When I walk in the door, a wall of Bounce hits me. Sitting here at my desk, all I can smell is Bounce.

Disgusted, I looked forward to my second package of pants because surely these would not smell as horrible as the first two pairs. Wrong. When I opened the package, yet another typhoon of Bounce-filled air stormed my nose. And stayed there. I think Bounce has sticky molecules that are designed to adhere to human nostril hair. Because no matter what I fix for dinner—fish, chicken in peanut sauce or grilled steak—all I can smell is Bounce. I’m thinking of having nose hair replacement therapy.

Last time I wrote about a product that annoyed me and used the actual name, the manufacturer sent a team of lawyers after me. If the Bounce people are as aggressive as the odor of their product, this time I’m expecting a team of contract killers. But I’ll be ready for them. Because their scent will surely hit me before their bullets do.

©2010, Janet Periat

I have been with Frank for 23 years and counting. I am very happy in our marriage. Of course, first I had go through the five stages of death: Denial: I’ll help him find his socks this one time. Anger: Find your own %$^#& socks! Bargaining: If I put your socks in the sock drawer, then can you find them?  Depression: I have more value than being a sock finder. And, finally Acceptance: He’ll never know where his stupid socks are. Still, I think he and his fellow husbands can do better. Guys, below find my tips that should get you laid more often.

Tip One: Be thankful you are alive. Husbands have no idea how close to death they are. When you forgot her birthday; when you took apart the carburetor in the kitchen sink; when you adjusted the new projection TV unit and dropped it and killed it; when you forgot to tell her that your fourteen football buddies were on their way over to watch the game; when you were late to work and came screaming in the door because you couldn’t find your keys and ordered her to help you find them—even though she was late to work because she’d already helped you find your briefcase; and last, but not least, when your mother came to visit for a week and you checked out mentally and let her cook and clean and care for dear, old Mom. Each instance she thought about clubbing you over the head with a wine bottle. She thought about sneaking off to Vegas with her friends and leaving you in the lurch. She considered walking out that door and never looking back. But she didn’t. Because she loves you.

Tip Two: Be nice to her. Every guy out there is thinking, “I am nice to her.” No, you’re not. Most of your compliments stay in your head. She cannot read your mind. You actually have to open your mouth and thank her. Think about what she’s done for you today. Not in passing. Not during commercials. Sit down and count the things she did to ensure your life and the lives of your kids were running smoothly. And tell her you appreciate her. We don’t mind taking care of you and the kids. We only mind when you don’t acknowledge our hard work. We mind when you track dirt over the freshly mopped floors. We mind when you stumble in, eat dinner, and get on your computer without acknowledging we exist. We mind when we ask you to do one thing to our sixty for the day and you whine like a seven-year-old. Smile and do whatever she asks. Even if you don’t feel like it. Then you’ll know what’s it’s like to be her.

Tip Three: Be extra nice to her when she’s hormonal. Her hormones are not her fault. Estrogen was not invented to piss off men. We would rather be pleasant. We would rather get up in the morning with a song in our hearts. But we are the mercy of our bodies. So if you wake up and notice that your wife’s hair has turned into snakes and she’s already turned the cat to stone, smile and tell her she looks beautiful. Tell her you love what she’s done with her snakes. If you have a complaint, save it. If you have a favor to ask of her, don’t. Give her a wide berth and tell her how great she looks. How lovely, wonderful and thoughtful she is, even if she isn’t. Do not say things like: “God, you are such a bitch today.” “I like you with a little weight on you.” “Wow. I know just what you’re going to look like at eighty.” “Is it your period?” Unless you want your head melted off by the flames that will be shooting from her mouth.

Tip Four: Micromanaging is not “helping.” Frank says the dumbest things to me. “Heh-heh-heh, really massacring that avocado, aren’t you? I think it’s screaming uncle. Have you thought about using another knife?” My normal response is to bare my teeth and growl at him. Which prompts his next stupid response: “Fine, I was only trying to help.” Which is a total lie. Help is cooking dinner, not telling me how to sauté vegetables “the right way”. Help is washing the window, not making faces at me from the other side of the glass. Help is washing the car, not ripping a sponge out of my hand and giving me a Shiwala—which doesn’t work. Helping is actually doing the task, Frank. Oh. And all you other guys, too.

Tip Five: You are the reason you aren’t having sex more often. Women have to jump through major mental hurdles to have sex. Women have six brains, men have one. Women need all six brains tuned to sex in order to enjoy it. She’s thinking about the dishes and the kids and the bills and the PTA meeting and the thirty-six cupcakes that need to be baked tonight. Helping her with the cupcakes will get you laid faster than grabbing her breasts while she’s trying to cook. Think about setting a mood. Think about seducing her. Like drawing a bath for her, offering a foot rub or surprising her with flowers. Contrary to popular belief, women do not consider the presence of an erection as foreplay. Don’t “wag” it at her to entice her. Don’t talk about your dick in the third person. “Mr. Happy wants some fun!” is not arousing. Don’t refer to it as an inanimate object. For the record, I don’t want to sleep with a sausage. And don’t fart while propositioning her. Engulfing her in a cloud of stench is not sexy. Take a shower. Compliment her. Help with the chores. In other words, work at it, boys. We do everything for you. Don’t make us seduce ourselves, too.

©2010, Janet Periat

I’ve been with my current husband for 23 years. People ask me all the time how we stay married and happy. The happy part seems to bewilder people the most. Below find my best advice. Next month, I’ll focus on advising the husbands.

Tip One: Realize that your man is not perfect. In any way, shape or form. They want everything their way all the time—along with wanting all the food and beer. They touch up the garage in the wrong color paint. They destroy your bathroom. They forget your birthday. They lose their jobs. They scream for stupid reasons. They demand you do things that you don’t want to do. They watch TV programs you hate. They fart, grab themselves and expect you to have sex with them, all in the same moment. Get over it.

Tip Two: Do not judge his actions based upon your own. If a woman walks by a huge pile of laundry, it means she’s seen it and is choosing not to fold it. If a man walks by a huge pile of laundry, it’s because he doesn’t recognize it as a pile of laundry. It’s merely part of his environment. Like a wall. This is why he steps over piles of shoes, walks around the full grocery bags on the floor and ignores the dishes in the sink. He honestly does not see the mess. This is why I now fold the clothes on Frank’s desk.

Tip Three: Men are not mind readers. You must tell a man what you expect out of him. Using a billboard, a sky-writing airplane and flash cards. Men don’t “instinctively” know what to do around the house. They can’t tell by your huffing and sighing that you wanted them to unload the dishwasher. They may not even know you own a dishwasher. Most men live in their heads. Both of them. At once. It is your job to tell them what you want. Writing your expectations down is best. In big bold letters. On the centerfold from Playboy magazine.

Tip Four: Men are not listening to you if the TV is on. Men are incapable of carrying on a conversation and watching TV at the same time. They will nod and smile and pretend to understand you to get rid of you, but they’ve not heard a word you’ve said. Unless you’ve said the word “sex.” Now when Frank watches TV, I start all conversations like this: “SEX! Frank could you put away the dishes? SEX! And take out the garbage?”

Tip Five: Men aren’t being mean if they don’t listen to you. They’re just being idiots. They don’t mean anything by it. They have no idea they’re not listening to you. They are crunching batting averages, conjuring their perfect fantasy football team, engineering a new way to take out the garbage that doesn’t involve actually touching it, or trying to get you to have sex. Or they’re thinking about food. They are completely disassociated from their surroundings. This is why I now take off my clothes if I want Frank’s attention. Which works, even if his focus isn’t necessarily on what I’m saying.

Tip Six: Men cannot multi-task. Frank says, “We’re more focused.” Ahem. Genetically, women have had to develop the talent of multi-tasking. Every woman I know can recite the contents of their fridge by heart and the date when the milk expires. They know when the kids have to be at soccer practice, band practice and the Chinese language lab. They know all their kids’ birthdays and kids’ friends’ birthdays. When Mom walks in the door after work at night, she supervises homework, cooks dinner, plans the upcoming family vacation, writes a shopping list and responds to fourteen emails, all at once.

When Dad comes home, he absently puts his briefcase directly in the path of the front door, drops his coat on the sofa, stumbles into the kitchen, kisses his wife—which isn’t easy because she won’t stay in one spot—then he heads to the fridge for a much-needed beer. He notices the TV is on. Cute weatherwoman. Nice rack. Going to be cooler tomorrow. But the sportscaster is all wrong about his team. Suddenly, out of nowhere, his wife screams, “Are you going to help me or stand there like an idiot with your mouth hanging open?” Astonished, he can’t figure out how she got mad so quick when all he did was walk in the door.

This is the point where the woman should point to the billboard in the backyard that says “Help With Dinner When You Get Home If You Ever Want To Have Sex With Me Again.”

Tip Seven: Just because he forgets your birthday or Valentine’s Day, doesn’t mean he doesn’t love you. It means he’s either forgetful or a Hallmark Rebel. Frank doesn’t like having his love shoved in a box of societal expectations and restrictions. In his mind, loving me and buying me stuff have nothing to do with each other. Which sucks. Beating him with the You Don’t Really Love Me Guilt Stick used to net me some cool gifts. But just because I understand he loves me, doesn’t mean I let him off the gift hook. I notify him two weeks before my birthday so he can’t pull the I’ve-been-so-busy-my-computer-died-the-cat-ate-my-date-book automatic response.

Tip Eight: Marriage isn’t fair to either party. He’s the lump that gets in your way and wants sex right after you get off the phone with your mother. You’re the crazy bitch who screams at him for no reason and won’t sleep with him after talking on the phone to whoever that was, he wasn’t listening. Accept this reality. While Hubby needs to come through with his share of financial and emotional support of the family, he is not there to fulfill your every desire. He’s there because you love him. And because he’s a pretty nice guy.

©2010, Janet Periat

Many laws are stupid and serve little purpose other than to further a politician’s career or pad the pockets of Wall Street. So I’ve decided to write my own stupid laws.

Law No. 1: Identity thieves must assume all the responsibilities of their victims’ lives for a period of one year. Examples: mortgage payments, jury duty, high school reunions, cleaning their houses and cars, and visits to Grandma Cranky Pants to hear all about her latest colonoscopy (complete with viewing pictures of Grandma’s colon). Identity thieves also must attend all holiday gatherings and will be forced to eat all the fruitcake at Christmas. And don’t forget to clean the cat box.

Law No. 2: All landlords and investors who purchase new buildings must occupy them for a period of one year before renting them out. In recent years, across the nation, judges have ordered slumlords to occupy their rentals as punishment for refusing to maintain the buildings. If this were made into a legal requirement, landfills would be brimming with orange and green shag carpeting, harvest gold kitchen appliances and brown linoleum.

Law No. 3: People who purchase loud cars and motorcycles must endure five nights of listening to the vehicle start and the engine rev right outside their bedroom windows before they are allowed to use them. “Loud Pipes Save Lives” will become “Quiet Pipes Save Lives” because if you rev that sucker at 6 a.m. just one more time, your neighbors will kill you.

Law No. 4: Make it a felony to break campaign promises. That oughta shorten those stupid campaign ads.

Law No. 5: All celebrities with product lines must prove they used the product for a period of one year before they are allowed to advertise and sell it. Products must be used in public. Which means Martha Stewart must defile her backyard with her tacky outdoor furniture from Kmart and Jaclyn Smith must humiliate herself in those ugly polyester old-lady clothes.

Law No. 6: All congressmen and senators must wear patches that signify what corporations they represent. Like race car drivers. Or they should be forced to wear tight, risqué outfits and strut around the Senate floor saying things like, “Sugar wants some sugar.” Or “Me so loyal. Me love you long time.”

Law No. 7: All instruction manuals for new electronics must be vetted by a panel of 80-year-olds. The panel must be able to use the product within a reasonable amount of time, not to exceed 30 minutes.

Law No. 8: Only 6-year-olds are allowed to vote in the primaries. Which would make politicians’ lies much clearer in their campaign ads. “Kids, I will outlaw school and make every day a holiday. I will make Santa my vice president. I’ll give you lots of candy if you let me be president. Toys for everyone!”

Law No. 9: All household electronics must be tested by monkeys for ease of use. Instead of being designed by monkeys. I still can’t work my microwave without staring at the control pad for a good few seconds to figure it out. Non-intuitive controls dominate my household technology. The PLAY button on the 67-button remote for my DVD player is the size of a BB. Try finding that in the dark when you only have one finger that isn’t covered in Cheetos cheese powder.

Law No. 10: All skinny supermodels’ photos must be accompanied by a disclosure of their actual diets. One carrot, six diet Red Bulls and two grams of cocaine.

Law No. 11: All fast-food ads must feature people who actually consume the products. Like Two-Ton Tilly and Wide-Ride Clyde spilling out of their seats while chowing down on Quadruple-Bypass Burgers, Mega Chili-Cheese Fries and two-gallon Super Soda Bloaters.

Law No. 12: Airline executives are only allowed to fly coach. Let them eat their knees, get blood clots in their legs and be charged to use the lavatory. Bet we’d get the peanuts back and more blankets.

Law No. 13: Actors in television programs must accurately reflect the nation’s populous. Which means one-third of all actors in TV shows must be obese. Instead of just one: Hugo on Lost. Of course, this would present problems for the camera people, trying to fit more than two people on screen at one time. Think extreme long shots.

Law No. 14: Products aimed at middle-aged people and older must not contain fine print. We can’t read it without a magnifying glass with the power of the Hubble.

Law No. 15: Viagra and other erectile dysfunction products can only be obtained with spousal permission. “Sorry, Harry, I gave that up when you started with the comb-overs and pulling your pants up above your fat roll.”

Law No. 16: Photos on frozen dinners must accurately represent the contents. Which means a picture of desiccated brown chunks of a chopped, pressed and formed beef-like substance in a gelatinous, caramel-colored, salty puddle of goop served with limp, spongy, gray string beans in a yellow-dyed, margarine-flavored sauce. Don’t forget the super-sweet, plasticy-tasting, burnt-and-hard-on-one-side-gooey-and-mucky-on-the-other-side, brownie-like cake thing. Mmmmm. Is it time for dinner yet?

Law No. 17: Limit snack manufacturers to only 10 percent extra space in the packaging for “settling of contents.” On most snack packages, the first ingredient on the list should be “air.” Bags of chips, especially. How many times have I bought a big bag of fancy-schmancy expensive potato chips only to find five chips and a few crumbs at the bottom of the bag? This kind of bait-and-switch always makes me feel stupid. I should only feel stupid for stuffing a bunch of fat in my body, not for buying the chips in the first place.

I’d love to hear similar ideas for laws from my readers. Click Contact Janet to send me your suggestions. I’ll print the best either here and/or in CoastViews Magazine, or both. First place winner gets a copy of my book. Second place gets two books. Deadline: July 31, 2010.

©2010, Janet Periat