Word meanings are fluid. Some change and some stay the same depending on what’s going on in the world. Since we are in a huge state of flux right now, I thought it would be good to clarify some current terms.

Congress: 1. The opposite of progress*. 2. A group of rich people with bad hair who take advantage of loopholes in the law to give themselves raises and nicer offices. 3. Government-sanctioned prostitutes. (See Senators and Lobbyists)

Senators: 1. A group of rich people who attended Ivy League schools to forge superficial relationships with people they don’t like in order to run for office to increase their family fortunes. 2. A group of ugly rich people in Washington DC who wear suits and blow through all the tax money extorted from the middle class while pretending to care about  “the people” but who are too self-centered to care about anyone but themselves.

Health Plan: 1. A hodgepodge of laws constructed by insurance companies to confuse patients and deny them care. 2. Legal extortion of the healthy middle class. 3. A bill that is paid supposedly to avoid bigger bills in case of emergency, but doesn’t really work that way. 4. A legal Ponzi scheme involving the health care industry, the insurance industry and an army of lawyers.

Republicans: 1. A group of rich old white men with bad hair who want to go back to the 1950s when women and minorities “knew their places”.  2. A political party whose sole purpose is to not let any other political party get anything accomplished. 3. A group of hypocrites who profess to be moral until they’re caught with their mistress in Argentina.

Democrats: 1. A spineless group of people who drive Priuses, do yoga, drink protein shakes and enjoy drumming circles and trips to Tibet. 2. A resident of Berkeley, San Francisco or Santa Cruz, California. 3. Someone who is politically correct to the point of disingenuousness. 4. Crazed pot-smoking hippies who put the lives of newts over the prosperity of chemical plants.

Minority: 1. Anyone who isn’t white, rich and heterosexual.  2. A group of people the Republicans fear and hate and legislate against until three months before the election when they pretend to like them.  3. A group of people who are blamed for everything that goes wrong in America.

Public Education System: 1. A day prison for children designed to destroy their natural curiosity and prepare them for a life of sitting at desks and following orders. 2. An underfunded institution that promotes a lifelong aversion to learning.  3. A brainwashing facility that strips participants of their innate talents, limits their choices and ensures their dependence on the system. 4. A Walmart training facility.

Lobbyists: 1. Corporate prostitutes who sell themselves to politicians in exchange for passing laws that will hurt the environment and the poor. 2. People without morals who try to convince other people without morals to continue committing immoral acts. 3. Soul-eating zombies with a political agenda. (See Congress and Senators)

Fast Food: 1. A food-shaped substance that imitates real food and has no nutritional value. 2. A delicious combination of salt, sugar, fat and preservatives that shortens the human life span.

Television: 1. A box that displays a lifestyle you will never be able to afford. 2. A mind-control device that makes the user feel fat, smelly, stupid and lazy. 3. A machine that eats time. 4. A device that facilitates and promotes depression.

Computer: 1. A data processing device that rarely does what you want it to and randomly destroys data. 2. A box that sucks in money and spits out porn.

Internet: 1. A place where bad news gets endlessly recycled far past its relevance. 2. A place to connect with freaks like you. 3. A place to farm virtual land and grow virtual crops and have virtual wars without really accomplishing anything at all. (See Television and Computer)

Marriage: 1. An institution involving two deluded people who actually think that by saying a bunch of magic words their significant other won’t cheat on them or abuse them or take out all their savings to invest in a pyramid scheme. 2. A sacred bond between a man and a woman that gay people have adopted and are now kicking themselves for it. 3. An extortion scheme designed by the bridal industry to get money out of stupid people who think that if they spend a lot on the ceremony it might actually translate into a lasting relationship. 4. A financial agreement between two people who like to sleep with each other and think that by getting financially involved it might promote some sort of bond between them.

Medical Marijuana: Marijuana that is obtained at a dispensary with a fake doctor’s note so stoners don’t have to pretend to be interested in their drug dealer’s boring lives.

Tea-Partiers: (syn: Tea-Baggers) 1. A group of disenfranchised white people who like to yell the n-word. 2. A group of stupid people who think that stupid people should run the world.

The Religious Right: 1. People who use God and the Bible as reasons to persecute people they don’t like. 2. Fearful people who say “they shouldn’t let them do that” a lot. 3. People who send money to men on television with bad hair who preach about morals until they get caught on video with a roomful of prostitutes. (See Congress, Senators, Lobbyists)

The Media: A conglomerate of organizations that twist and distort reality in order to force their users to watch or read paid advertisements.

Liberals: 1. A group of open-minded people who are easily influenced and can’t make decisions. 2. People who miss the Summer of Love. 3. People who think Al Gore is cool.

Conservatives: 1. Fat, bald white guys who hate and fear everything. 2. People with anger issues who love to shout at liberals. 3. Closeted gay people who like having sex in public restrooms.

*Heard this from the comedian Gallagher.

©2010, Janet Periat

It has come to my attention that our country is in the grip of a giant Stupid Attack. Truths, lies and myths have all mixed into one big confusing Internet story. So I will be your great Bringer of Truth. (Or Bringer of More BS, depending on your point of view.)

Myth Number One: The government is there to help you. This is actually true IF any or all of the following criteria are met: 1) You are an elected official. 2) You are a multi-national corporation. 3) You are richer than God. 4) You are a country that has oil. Then the red carpet rolls out and supplicants are willing to meet your every need. Owe money to the IRS? No problem. We’ll just postpone your billing and not charge you any penalties. Which brings up a question: how do congressmen owe back taxes without accruing penalties? They pay interest on their back taxes, but no penalties. We peons can’t owe back taxes without being put on an IRS black ops hit list. For this reason alone, I’ve decided to run for public office.

Myth Number Two: The pharmaceutical companies are working hard to cure your illnesses. Actually, they are working hard to “maintain” your illnesses with pills for life. Drug companies don’t make any money off of curing people. They only make money off of “controlling” illnesses. I have a friend who works at one of these wonderful drug companies. His lab produced a great drug that helped counter the effects of diabetes with amazing results. While this was another maintenance drug, his parent company shelved it because they couldn’t “maximize enough profits” from its production. My friend believed in this drug so much, he wanted to start his own company to produce it. The parent company refused his request to buy the patent. And we wonder why health care costs are spiraling out of control.

Myth Number Three: The Internet increases productivity and saves time by allowing us rapid access to information. Farmville, Worlds of Warcraft, Twitter, Facebook, Google, Amazon, My Space, You Tube. I envision millions of people in their cubicles, typing away on their keyboards in corporate offices. Their bosses look on, pleased their minions are so diligent. Yes, diligently comparing prices on Clinique lipstick, growing crops on Farmville and exchanging stupid chain emails involving angels and fairies. Remember, if you don’t send the Happy Angel to seven of your friends within ten minutes, your computer will die and your genitalia will fall off.

Myth Number Four: Global warming is a hoax. For all of your Flat Earth Society people who think that global warming is a plot by Al Gore to sell books and movies and get him the kind of cred he never had as Vice-President (mainly because of his spastic white-guy dancing at the Inaugural Ball), I invite you to buy coastal property. Then, when some big waves take out your home, you can go to the government for a bailout. And they’ll be right there for you. Just ask the people of New Orleans.

Myth Number Five: Schools are preparing our children for the future. All graduating students are now prepared for a future of sitting at desks and taking tests. When I think about how many jobs entail sitting and taking tests, I envision a beautiful future for America. “911, what’s your emergency?” “Help! My house is on fire! Send someone fast! How long before they get here?” “Let me see. If your house is on fire and has eleven minutes to burn to the ground and the fire station is five miles away and the fire engine is capable of speeds of twenty-five to thirty-miles an hour, I’d say the answer is ‘B’.” “’B’? I’ll lose my house by then. Why not ‘A’ or ‘D’?” “Sorry, sir, budget cutbacks.”

Myth Number Six: Banks are honest institutions. Right before she died, my aunt was sold an annuity by Bank of America. She never received copies of the documents she signed. Seventy-five thousand bucks vanished somewhere between my aunt signing and the payout after she died. Our lawyer sent five letters and made several phone calls requesting copies of the original documents. He was ignored. He finally told us it would cost more than seventy grand to force B of A to relinquish the documents. I’m so glad we taxpayers bailed them out. I was worried about B of A. I mean, how many victims can they fleece before people wise up and withdraw all their money?

Myth Number Seven: Outsourcing to India saves big corporations lots of money. And they get what they pay for. My husband just got a job which required a background check. The corporation hired to do his background check outsourced their work to India. So on Christmas Eve, Frank got a call from the background check people in India. They couldn’t verify his diploma from UC Santa Cruz because “no one is answering the phones.” Because it was CHRISTMAS EVE. Then the kicker. The person requested that Frank send a copy of his diploma to them so they could verify his degree. Frank was all for this. Because he just remembered that he got a Ph.D. from Stanford, was a Rhodes scholar and got an MBA from Harvard. I wonder if Homeland Security hired the same company to do the background check on that airline bomber.

Myth Number Eight: There is a middle class in America. Obama keeps talking about boosting the middle class, but I only know one class of people. Poor people. After putting the kids through college and taking care of our parents, we’ve already gone through all our retirement and savings. Here’s the new mantra for my generation: “Hello and welcome to Walmart!”

I’d move to my own island if I could get cable, high-speed Internet access and a reliable supply of Heineken.

©2010, Janet Periat

Call them resolutions, call them promises, call them whatever you want, but this is the time of the year to set goals for the year. Below is my list which may help you generate your own. Or not.

Goal Number One: I want to stop being pissed off at things beyond my control. Every time I watch the news—which is daily—I end up spitting acid, screaming and my head spins around on my shoulders. Bankers getting bonuses for screwing us all over. Town hall meetings that turn into WWF matches. Rush Limbaugh. Blue states and red states. Yet, I do not want to bite when I am fed the anger chew toys. I want to drop the ball and concentrate on what I want in my life. Which is less bile, more fun. But when some idiot on TV is screaming and waving a sign that says “Keep Government Out of My Medicare!” I can’t help but want to smash them over the head with a reality stick.

Goal Number Two: Lose weight. This has been on my goal list for the past fifteen years. I call it a Legacy Goal. Have no idea if I’ll do anything about it, but it’s a nice thing to have on my list.

Goal Number Three: Ignoring irritating people. We are surrounded by many annoying people in our lives. The more self-aware you become, the more irritating people you notice. So this year, when some irritant walks up to me and says something stupid, I don’t want to be angry. I want to either ignore them or come up with a witty comeback other than “Shut up, Dad.”

Goal Number Four: Prioritize my To Do list. Maybe optimize my To Do list would be a better way of putting it. I fret over the yard, the house, my work, everything. I’m so afraid of not finishing the tasks on my list that now I feel like a failure at everything. When I’m writing, I’m failing at keeping the house up. When I’m cleaning the house, I’m failing at writing. So I’ve decided to write my books and wear a blindfold the rest of the time. I may trip over stuff, but if I can’t see the mess, I won’t care.

Goal Number Five: Work out more. This has also been on my goal list for the past fifteen years. Another Legacy Goal. Putting it on my list makes me feel less guilty about eating lots of chocolate and drinking beer and not working out. Hey, it’s on the list, isn’t it?

Goal Number Six: Seeing my friends more. Because I’ve got this stupid list of crap I never finish, I don’t schedule as much time with friends. Wait…I’m having an epiphany… I’m… writing a list… about letting go of my obsession with adhering to lists… there’s a lesson here somewhere… if I could only find it…

Goal Number Seven: I want to be okay with who I am and where I am now. Here’s who I want to be: mature, self-confident, rich, on the NY Times Best Seller list, svelte and buff. Here’s where I am: overly emotional, self-confident in writing only, super broke, my total book sales for the last two years is 534 and I’m chunky. But this is my best. I work hard, and for some reason, this is the best I can do. And I want to be okay with that. I want to be okay with me. Fat, wrinkly, beer-drinking, swearing-every-other-word me… Somehow that looks even worse in print. I just frightened myself. Maybe this is another one of those Legacy Goals…

Goal Number Eight: Completing planned art projects. I want to create this entire series of yard monsters. Using chicken wire and plaster, I want to build large (between four and six feet tall) strange colorful creatures and put them in my yard. I want them peering out from behind bushes or guarding the mailbox or lurking by the garage. I have many designs in mind and have already created smaller versions out of polymer clay. This also sounds even crazier in print. And I just added a goal to your list: Avoid moving next door to Janet.

Goal Number Nine: Stop worrying. Another Legacy Goal, but I get closer everyday. I’ve worked hard and I’ve let go of many things. I am no longer worried that I will get female-pattern baldness (at fifty, I can tell I dodged that bullet). I’m not worried about my parents moving next door to me (because they’re dug in like ticks at that retirement home). I’m not worried that my cat will die (because he’s already dead.) I don’t worry about Frank cheating on me (maybe I should). I don’t worry about passing classes (because I graduated in 1989). See? I’ve really come a long way.

Goal Number Ten: Stop making stupid Goals Lists. And enjoy my life. I don’t want to push myself so hard that I wake up dead one day and wonder where the hell my life went. I don’t want my tombstone to read: Died Trying To Finish Her To Do List. Or the converse, I don’t want the two people at my funeral saying, “Yeah, hadn’t seen her much in recent years. But I heard she finished everything on her list.” Somehow I don’t think there’s a special red velvet section of Heaven reserved for people who completed their To Do lists. I’m afraid instead of wings they’ll give me a Dunce Cap that reads: Lived Her Life By Lists and Forgot To Enjoy Herself.

I just hope my Legacy Goals don’t follow me into the next life.

©2010, Janet Periat

Yes, it’s that time again, folks, to buy gifts for our loved ones. Due to job loss and the current economy, this year could prove even more challenging to those on a strained budget. Instead of exchanging guilt, frustration and worry this season, try something different and take one of my suggestions below.

Number One: Wrap cheap gifts in bags and boxes from expensive stores. Go to the dollar store, pick up some cheap crap and stuff it in a Nordstrom’s box. No one will know the difference and you’ll score huge points. Hopefully your relatives will reciprocate with gifts that are actually expensive.

Number Two: Create personalized gifts. This adds a wonderful personal touch and enables you to give more unique and memorable gifts. Do a sculpture in marshmallows of your father’s stomach. Handwrite a poem on nice parchment about the time your brother accidentally set the house on fire. Do a photo collage of your family’s most embarrassing moments. Make sure to include pictures of your Dad passed out behind the tree after the Cinco De Mayo tequila-chugging contest and your sister’s unfortunate hairstyle that made her look like a dead poodle.

Number Three: Make gifts out of recyclables. Think decoupaging an old wine bottle to make a beautiful vase. Hint: Consume all the wine before you decorate the bottle. Amazing what creativity sprouts under the influence of alcohol.

Number Four: Bake gifts for loved ones. People love cookies, candies and cakes. But don’t go for the usual, try the unusual. How about recreating The Last Supper with gingerbread men? How about a cake in the shape of deceased pet? Chocolate in the shape of a relative’s most prominent body part? Fruitcakes are especially recommended. Not only are they a tasty dessert, they make great wheel chocks, paperweights, provide amazing self-defense against burglars and work well as an impromptu jack stand to change tires on cars.

Number Five: Give gift certificates for personal services you will perform. Think about your talents. How can you turn this into a gift of service? Are you a racecar driver? Give a gift certificate for a thrilling ride to the airport. Are you a police officer? How about a coupon for covering up a relative’s petty crime? How about a mover? Give a certificate redeemable for moving your sister’s cheating husband out of her house. Exceptions: masseuses, personal escorts and performance artists. Even open-minded families don’t want to go there.

Number Six: Regift. While many will advise against this, a gift becomes a belonging once it is received. Fruitcakes make perfect regifts as they have half-lives and will more than likely outlive their recipients. If you’re all out of fruitcakes, I’ll bet Dad would appreciate that hand-crocheted toilet paper cover in the shape of a pink, frilly doll that Aunt Gilda made for you. What about that Obama Chia Pet you got from the office for Mom? What about the Ab Roller your husband gave you as an anniversary gift? As long as the item is more or less unused, anything is fair game.

Number Seven: Give the gift of a family heirloom. What a perfect opportunity to get rid of a family albatross under the guise of being generous. What about your dead aunt’s collection of raccoon memorabilia? How about Grandpa’s gold teeth, Cousin Lydia’s antique fruitcake or better yet, the urn full of Uncle Al’s ashes? What a marvelous surprise for Jimmy to open up a box on Christmas morning and find his favorite uncle’s remains.

Number Eight: Give a group gift that everyone will enjoy. Hire a Chippendale’s dancer for the family Easter party. A Mafioso to beat up your sister’s deadbeat husband. A group date to In and Out Burger. Or take your family to a time-share presentation for vacation homes in Antarctica. Not only is it free entertainment, you’ll get a box lunch to boot.

Number Nine: Give marketing stuff from work. Pens, pencils, mugs, t-shirts, sweatshirts. If you don’t have enough marketing crap, think outside the box. Reams of paper, old computers, Post-It notes, manila envelopes. Maybe even your cubicle itself. Mom might want to divide the master bedroom and create some personal space away from Dad.

Number Ten: Change the gift tags on the presents under the tree. This is super simple. All you have to do is exchange tags and make the presents appear as if they came from you. This is the cheapest option of all.

Number Eleven: Steal stuff. Okay, so maybe this is bad karma, but who will know? Think a Rolex for Dad, a Ferrari for Mom, a few million for Sis. Hey, if you’re gonna be stealing something, why not aim high?

Number Twelve: Dumpster dive. It’s amazing what kind of stuff people throw away. So what if that sweater doesn’t have a sleeve? Put it in a Macy’s box and tell your sister it’s a new trend. And that case of chili may be a few months out of date, but it’s still good.

Number Thirteen: Buy my books. Especially How To Make Your Life Suck. Especially if you never want to hear from your relatives again.

Feel better about the upcoming holidays? Bursting with creative ideas on how to save money? Inspired to face the challenges of too much family time? Great. Glad I could help. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go create a sculpture of Rush Limbaugh out of old tires. What joy awaits my family on Christmas morning!

©2009, Janet Periat

I recently celebrated my half-century birthday. I have learned much in my time here. I’m starting to forget most of it, so I’m going to write down the salient points for future reference.

Number One: When you turn fifty, you don’t have to dress like your mother. My mom always dressed cool, but ultra feminine. And very adult. So do all my girlfriends. I dress like a teenage boy. I had this idea in the back of my mind that someday I would wake up and be a grown up and suddenly understand the need for high heels and dresses and scarves. You know, like, at fifty. Now that I’m fifty I’ve come to a realization: I will always dress like a nineteen-year-old boy. At ninety-five, I’m gonna look like the Mummy in jeans and a t-shirt. Which is actually fine because of Number Two.

Number Two: No one cares what old people do. Basically, you go from being “the” age in all TV dramas, the center of the universe of fashion, on the forefront of new trends, straight into the vast wasteland of The Great Ignored. Your age group is no longer represented on TV, except in embarrassing denture commercials. No one asks you what you’re doing anymore because they assume you’re not doing anything new or different or interesting. Which means you can finally get away with whatever you want. I rented a bounce house for my adults-only fiftieth birthday and had a blast jumping in the stupid thing. I kept expecting the Age Police to show up and ticket me. But no one gave a damn. I’m thinking of pushing this whole Ignoring of the Old People phenomenon and starting a life of crime.

Number Three: Sex is as good at fifty as it was at twenty. Even better because I’m not as self-conscious, nor am I worried about unintended consequences. Like children. The only difference is I’m not into all that freakin’ Cirque Du Soleil stuff because I’m as flexible as a two by four with as much stamina as an emphysema patient on oxygen. Which brings me to Number Four.

Number Four: Aging hurts. You can still do much of what you did in your youth, you’re just gonna pay a price for it. Sure you can have sex all night or jump in a bounce house. You’ll just be in traction for the following week. Getting out of bed requires not only more effort, but a large grunt, too. There is a direct relationship between age and the amount of noise you make when getting up. I used to think my parents were having brain aneurysms every time they got out of a chair. Now I get it. If you sit too long, everything solidifies. Kind of like pre-rigor mortis. I think my body assumes that since I’ve sat for so long, I’ve actually died. So it stiffens up like a corpse and gets ready for embalming. All that pain is from my body reanimating as I force it to move. Kind of like Frankenstein being shocked into life. My mom says it gets worse and this is the only thing she’s ever told me that’s turned out to be true.

Number Five: Your parents were wrong about almost everything. Problem with parents is that they give you advice from their parents, who got it from their parents and pretty soon, the advice sounds like it came from the Pilgrims just getting off the Mayflower. In every generation, all the rules change, yet parents’ advice stays the same. Get a good job. Stay there forever. Pay them with your loyalty and they’ll pay you with theirs. Banks are the safest place to put your money. Mom told me the other day, “Don’t worry about planning for your future, it will all work out by itself. That’s what we did.” Riiiggghhht. My parents’ generation lucked out. They bought their homes for a dime and sold them for a million. They got GI loans, health insurance, pensions and could support a family of six on one salary. They got Social Security. Basically, their generation spent all the money and left nothing for us. Of course, if they told us the truth, we wouldn’t be helping them pay for that nice cushy retirement home.

Number Six: As they age, most men turn into Dick Cheney. Remember how cute Richard Dreyfus was? What about that hot guy in high school? What the hell happened to these guys? They all got fat, bald and whiter. They all morphed into the same man. They started off as adorable men, then they went through the Dick-Cheney-Izer. They lost their hair, acquired a paunch, started wearing glasses, dressed in old man clothes and now resemble human maggots. Their wives look twenty years younger even if they’re the same age. The weird thing is, the guys still think they’re hot. Frightening.

Number Seven: If it tastes good or makes you feel good, it’s bad for you. Beer, chocolate, caffeine, doughnuts, hamburgers, French fries, cigarettes, butter, salt and Pringles. That was my breakfast. The doctor keeps telling me it’s all gonna kill me, but since I’m old now and no one cares what I do, I figure to hell with it. Which brings me to Number Eight.

Number Eight: When you get older, you realize that no one knows anything. Especially doctors. Three years ago, my doctor told me I should be on Hormone Replacement Therapy because it would help prevent certain illnesses. A year ago, she told me I shouldn’t because HRT causes more illnesses than it was supposed to cure. I could name five hundred other things my doctor was wrong about. So now I don’t listen to her. Or anyone else for that matter. Of course, that could be my hearing.

Stay tuned, I have much more wisdom to impart—if I could only remember it.

©2009, Janet Periat

WARNING: This column is tasteless. No one should read it. Period. Except for the marketing executives at Fleet.

The other day EneMan™ came into my life. EneMan is Fleet Enema’s mascot/superhero. My personal EneMan is a soft squishy foam toy. It is quite simply one of the most horrid marketing inventions I’ve come across to date. As my husband so aptly put it “EneMan… it’s just so wrong.” And I have to agree. Charley the Tuna, I understand. Same with Mr. Clean, Count Chocula and the Trix rabbit. But EneMan? What were these guys thinking?

The most frightening thing about EneMan is that so much work went into his creation. EneMan represents countless meetings, drawings, discussions and proposals. There is an EneMan purchase order, an EneMan production company. There was an EneMan photo shoot and vast reams of paper associated with EneMan: invoices, spread sheets and requisition forms. EneMan is in my living room because hundreds of people and hundreds of thousands of dollars made sure he was. (Along with the help of a friend of mine with an absolutely demented sense of humor—thanks Dallas!)

First, some marketing genius at Fleet proposed EneMan at one of their brainstorming sessions. In my mind it went something like this: “Hey, you know, enemas are pretty scary,” the person said. “We need to soften our image. Maybe throw a bit of humor in there. Put a face on our enemas. A friendly face. No maybe a superhero’s face—EneMan! Saving millions from the horrors of constipation!” the marketing person exulted. Some people at the meeting were rightfully appalled with this idea. However, some marketing executive thought it was a great idea. He jumped on it. “Better get that name trademarked before someone else gets it. That’s gonna be a popular name. I mean, with the Internet and all. All we need is some porn site taking our name and ruining our campaign. Or worse, some Saturday morning cartoon on Cartoon Network. EneMan would make a great cartoon hero, wouldn’t he?” “By, God, you’re right!” exclaimed another corporate executive. “Bob, get on that one right away, we don’t want EneMan snatched away from us before we can get this campaign started.” The people at the meeting who hated the idea were afraid of voicing their opinions and losing their jobs so they kept their mouths shut. And so the action item was taken down, it’s order given to some flunky and the first step in EneMan’s journey had begun.

Bringing EneMan to life required an artist. Perhaps one of these enslaved corporate scribblers came up with the concept themselves—quite a payoff for a four years toiling away at art and design school. Somehow I think the artist pictured their future very differently. I don’t think they were at the New York Museum of Art gazing up at the oils thinking to themselves “Someday… I will create EneMan! My career highlight! My life fulfilled!” And I doubt the creation of EneMan will ever make it to the artist’s resume. However, one of these poor slobs was assigned to draw EneMan, make clay models of him and this same artist probably devoted two full years of his or her life to the creation of the enema superhero.

After the drawings and clay models were approved on EneMan, the order went to a production company. Which involved much correspondence, many phone calls, business trips and meetings. Which resulted in some Chinese manufacturers being even more convinced that the Americans had lost their collective minds.

Soon, scores of EneMen rolled off the assembly line, carried along on conveyor belts, like little garish soldiers going off to fight the good war for regularity. From there, the EneMen bravely marched their way to the packing plant, where they were boxed up and shipped to their homeland—the United States of America. Finally, after a long voyage across the open seas, the first leg of the EneMen’s journey came to an end. The EneMen had come home.

After our little squishy heroes arrived, they were unpacked and admired by their creators. “Look at these little babies!” the marketing executive exclaimed. “These have exceeded my wildest expectations! Talk about trade show swag! Boy, are we gonna beat the pants off those Viagra jerks! There’s gonna be a run on these little puppies. Oh, no pun intended. Heh-heh-heh!”

From the marketing department at corporate headquarters, the EneMen were dispatched to trade shows across the nation. And how they were welcomed! They even had a guy inside a giant EneMan costume at the trade shows, passing out lovely little likenesses of himself to eager medical professionals. EneMan ended up in briefcases from California to New York City. What a triumph for the EneMen! Can you imagine how happy the husbands and wives of these professionals were to see EneMen marching into their own homes? Yes. Probably about as happy as getting an enema.

After I began writing this column, I wanted to know how close to the truth I was about EneMan’s creation. So, I looked him up on the web. Here’s the actual, verbatim quote from C.B. Fleet Company’s corporate website about the creation of EneMan. “LOOK! UP IN THE SKY. IT’S A BIRD! IT’S A PLANE! A NEW FORCE FIGHTS TO INCREASE COLORECTAL CANCER SCREENING!” It is beyond me how the people at Fleet thought a caped superhero in the shape of an enema would alert people to the risks of colorectal cancer.

What I think happened is that they created EneMan to sell their product and after EneMan came back to corporate headquarters, someone finally came to their senses and dared to voice their opinion to the marketing boss. “Um, I’m not sure this is the best marketing idea we’ve had. I mean, EneMan is a superhero and an enema. Do you think the consumer will really like the idea of a superhero flying up their butt?” “But we’ve spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on EneMan!” the marketing executive thundered. “What do we do with him now? We can’t just abandon EneMan!” Then another person at the meeting said, “Well, we’ve been tapped to do this awareness program on colorectal cancer.” “Fine! Perfect!” the marketing executive exclaimed. “We’ll say we created EneMan to promote awareness for colorectal cancer! Then the CEO won’t find out we just blew five hundred grand on a turkey marketing idea. You’re a genius! Give that man a promotion!”

I still say it was a stupid idea. I, personally, do not like the idea of a superhero flying up my rear. But maybe that’s just me.

However, I now count EneMan as one of my most precious belongings. Never will I discard EneMan to the cruelty of the dumps or the vast wasteland of thrift stores. No, my EneMan has found a permanent home. EneMan will serve to be my own personal superhero. My constant vindication for choosing a career outside of corporate America.

© 2004, Janet Periat

Dreams Do Come True

You never know when a goal will be accomplished. Normally, if you don’t accomplish it a few years from making it, you give up. But recently, I learned a lesson. Never stop trying, even if the goal was made when you were five. And even if the goal is silly. Recently, I took a trip to Reno with my cousin to satisfy not only my claw machine addiction, but my slot machine jones. I had no idea I would also be fulfilling a lifelong dream.

The day we arrived in Reno, we played some slots at Harrah’s where we were staying, then I headed over to Circus Circus to rescue some badly-sewn, deformed animals made in China from the claw machines (I went alone, my cousin is not a big arcade fan). For those of you not familiar with the Circus Circus casino, on the second level is a carnival midway, complete with ring toss games, pop-a-balloon games and the like, plus circus acts every hour all under a fake big top. Along with many claw machines.

On ten bucks I ended up with ten animals. Not bad odds, considering it was fifty cents a throw. However, this still wasn’t enough to satisfy my needs.

So on Day Two, I returned to Circus Circus. A a small bar adjacent to the entrance to the midway was open. I’d noticed it before, but it was only open on the weekends and I normally travel to Reno during the week. This small bar offered “Party Yards” full of either frozen strawberry daiquiris or lime margaritas. Since I was on vacation and had never bought myself a giant frozen alcoholic beverage, it seemed like a good idea. I ordered a margarita, the reasoning being fake lime flavor is normally less barfy than fake strawberry flavor. I forgot about my body’s natural aversion to tequila.

The bartender took a mix that came in a milk carton and partially filled up a “Party Yard” which is a long plastic glass with a beaker-like bottom and a tall skinny tube on top. Top to bottom it’s about 15 and ½ inches tall (talk about gross misrepresentation in advertising). He added two shots of a slightly amber liquid and one shot of a clear liquid. The bartender had clearly been instructed to turn the bottles away from the customer so the labels could not be read. Because they probably had a skull and crossbones on them, labeled “Cleaning Fluid” and “Poison”. Then he hit the button on this giant ice-crushing gizmo that dumped ice shavings into the “Party Yard”. He stuck a cover on it—complete with a two-foot-long straw stuck through the center—and handed it to me. All for the bargain price of $8.75.

Thrilled with my giant drink, I eagerly took a draw off my margarita. I nearly gagged. It tasted like limeade made with 20 cups of sugar mixed with tequila-flavored battery acid. I took a second draw to determine if it was really that bad. It was. At this point a wise voice in my head said, “Throw this away, Janet.” And as I normally do with the wise voices in my head, I ignored it. Besides, by the fourth sip, the alcohol hit. And as with all rot gut, it hit HARD.

At this point, the claw machines took on a new level of difficulty. I only got four for my allotted five bucks and one of them was a hideous Mr. Burns from the Simpsons. Also at this point—despite my loss of motor skills—I realized that I really liked my margarita. My margarita was my friend. A symbol of letting loose, of a great vacation. Like my own personal billboard that proclaimed “Party on, dudes!” Or more likely, “I have no taste and questionable judgment!”

I wandered by a game of knock-down-the-beach-balls-floating-on-a-cushion-of-air-with-a-beanbag. I won a stuffed bear on one throw and missed with the second. This plus my less-than-stellar achievements on the claw machines told me it was time to go. I worked my way back to the entrance. The last midway game I passed had giant prizes meaning the odds of winning were nearly impossible. But I had my Party Yard and playing one of these impossible games seemed like a great idea (kind of like the initial Party Yard idea).

The game consisted of a table filled with upright Coke bottles with a single red Coke bottle in the center. The prizes were giant stuffed bears, huge stuffed sharks and little foot-long stuffed flowers. I assumed the smaller prizes corresponded to the clear Coke bottles and the big stuffed animals went with the red Coke bottle in the middle. Object of the game was to throw a small, three-inch wooden ring over the top of the bottle. Ten rings for a dollar or twenty-five for two bucks. Since throwing around some wooden rings sounded like fun, I went for twenty-five rings. I’ve played this game at least once a year since I was five and have never won a damn thing. But fueled by the Party Yard, I decided I’d just have fun throwing the rings around. Reality at this point was rather fuzzy, anyway, and my vision wasn’t so great. But what did it matter? Throw the rings!

I threw the first ring and it landed on top of a clear Coke bottle. I blinked. The ring was still there. The girl running the game said, “I’ve never seen anyone do that before.” She removed the ring and I kept aiming for the red Coke bottle in the center. I missed the remaining 24 throws. I finished and waited for her to hand me the stupid stuffed flower. She indicated the giant stuffed animals hanging above us and asked, “Which one do you want?” I looked at her, stunned. “Are you sh**ing me?” (Thanks to the Party Yard, I’d lost my Swearing-In-Public-Filter.) She said no and gestured towards these GIANT stuffed animals.

Now extremely stunned, I happily chose a giant blue shark. Tip to tail, it’s nine feet long. Luckily it’s in the shape of a comma so it only stands five feet tall. Still, the thing is GARGANTUAN. And I had to carry it—along with my Party Yard and other stuffed animals—back to Harrah’s, which was three casinos plus two blocks away.

Giddy with victory, I hoisted the shark over my shoulder and began my trek back to my room. I caused quite a scene. Probably because I was giggling madly during the entire journey and told anyone who made eye contact with me “Hey, I may not be winning on the machines, but I won me a giant stuffed shark!” People were VERY amused (and not just by my use of bad English). That walk back to my hotel was some of the most fun I’ve had in years. Even the homeless drunks in the gutters greeted me with happy cheer.

When I finally arrived at Harrah’s, a security guard stopped me halfway to the elevators. With a serious expression he said, “I’m sorry ma’am, but we don’t allow sharks in here.” Then he burst out laughing. The rest of the night, I was the Shark Lady. Even without the shark.

What was even funnier was trying to fit the damn thing into my cousin’s Prius for the journey home.

The only bad thing about my fun evening was the hangover that hit at two o’clock in the morning and lasted for the following 48 hours. The Party Yard giveth (giant stuffed sharks), the Party Yard taketh away (umpteen brain cells). Of course it could have been the two beers and Cosmopolitan that followed. Whatever, I suffered almost as much as after the infamous Chippendale’s Night of Debauchery from 2005. You’d think by now, I’d have figured out how to avoid a hangover. Apparently not. At least now I have a new tool in my arsenal to fight hangovers: no more Party Yards.

Still, as I gaze at the gargantuan stuffed shark that now dominates my living room, I giggle. Not only is the thing hugely ridiculous, winning it was a great lesson for me. If I want something, all I have to do is try. If I keep trying, eventually I will succeed. I just never know when it will happen.

I also learned another very important lesson: stop making goals about acquiring things that don’t fit in the house. Sorry full-size replica of Robby the Robot, you just got taken off the list.

©2009, Janet Periat