Chick Wit
- Column Classic: Can This Marriage Be Saved? March 17, 2024
By Lisa Scottoline
Breaking up is hard to do, especially with a credit card company.
Our melodrama begins when I’m paying bills and notice a $50.00 balance on a credit card that I hadn’t used in a long time. When I checked the statement, it said that the charge was the annual fee. I was wondering if I needed to pay fifty dollars for a card I didn’t use when I clapped eyes on the interest rate.
30.24%
Yes, you read that right. In other words, if I had a balance on the card at any time, they could charge me 30% more than the cost of all the stuff I bought.
Like a great sale, only in reverse.
I’m not stingy, but I could get money cheaper from The Mob.
I read further and saw that the Mafia, er, I mean, the credit card company, could also charge me a late fee of $39.95, which was undoubtedly a fair price for processing the transaction, as I bet their billing department is headed by Albert Einstein.
So, I made a decision.
I called the customer service number, which was almost impossible to find on the statement, picked up the phone, and as directed, plugged in my 85-digit account number. Of course, as soon as a woman answered the phone, the first question she asked was:
“What is your account number?”
I bit my tongue. They all ask this, and I always want to answer, “Why did you have me key it in? To make it harder to call customer service?”
Perish the thought.
So, I told her I wanted to cancel the card, and her tone stiffened. She said, “May I ask why you wish to close your account?”
For starters, I told her about the annual fee.
“Would it make a difference if there were no annual fee?”
I wanted to answer, “Is it that easy to disappear this annual fee, and if so, why do you extort it in the first place?” But instead, I said only, “No, because you have a usurious interest rate and late fee.”
“Will you hold while I transfer you to a Relationship Counselor?”
I’m not making this up. This is verbatim. You can divorce your hubby easier than you can divorce your VISA card. I said for fun, “Do I have a choice?”
“Please hold,” she answered, and after a few clicks, a man came on the line.
“Thanks for patiently waiting,” he purred. His voice was deep and sexy. His accent was indeterminate, but exotic, as if he were from the Country of Love.
Meow.
Suffice it to say that the Relationship Counselor got my immediate attention. I was beginning to think we could work on our relationship, and if we met twice a week, we could turn this baby around. He sounded like a combination of Fabio and George Clooney. You know who George Clooney is. If you don’t know who Fabio is, you’re not old enough to read what follows.
“No problem.” I said. I did not say, “What are you wearing?”
“Please let me have your account number,” he breathed, which almost killed the mood.
So, I told him and said that I wanted to cancel my card.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” he said. He sounded genuinely sad. I wanted to comfort him, and I knew exactly how.
But I didn’t say that, because it would be inappropriate.
“I have a suggestion,” he whispered.
So, do I. Sign me up for 5 more cards. You have my number, all 85 digits.
“We can switch you to the no-fee card.”
I came to my senses. “Can you switch me to the no-highway-robbery interest rate?”
“Pardon me?” he asked, but I didn’t repeat it.
“Thanks, I just want to cancel the card.”
“I understand. And I respect your decision.”
He actually said that. I made up the 85 digits part, but the rest is absolutely true.
I knew what I wanted to say before I hung up. That we’d had a good run, but like a love meteor, we burned too hot, for too short a time.
Instead, I said, “Thanks.”
Honestly, it’s not me.
It’s you.
Copyright Lisa Scottoline
- Column Classic: Women’s Rights and Wrongs March 10, 2024
By Lisa Scottoline
Everywhere you look you can see enormous regard for women, especially among big business.
I’m talking about two great new products.
The first is the wine rack.
No, not that wine rack.
Not that shelf with the holes that hold wine bottles.
Silly.
I’m talking about a bra that has two plastic bags, one in each cup, and you can fill the bags with wine, which you can drink through a tube attached to the bra.
The “wine rack.”
Get it?
It’s so punny!
Anyway, what a clever idea, right?
I’m sure that every woman has wondered whether she could drink wine out of her bra.
That is, everyone but me.
Although to be fair, I have wondered if I could eat chocolate cake out of my bra.
Then I could have cupcakes!
See, I can think of stupid puns, too!
By the way, I don’t know where your breasts go if the cups of your bra are occupied by wine bags. Evidently, you can’t be picky when your underwear doubles as a beverage delivery system.And who doesn’t want their wine warmed by body heat?
In any event, it’s good to know that American business is constantly thinking of innovative ways to meet the needs of women.
Alcoholic women.
In fact, if you look up the wine rack online, they call it “every girl’s best friend.”
Really?
More like every girl’s best frenemy.
Because, let’s be real. It’s a bra.
Every girl’s best friend is going braless.
Amazingly, in addition to the wine rack, I came across another genius product for women, called the Shewee.
Yes, you read that right.
According to its website, the Shewee is “urinating device that allows women to urinate when they’re on the go.”
In other words, if you have to go while you’re on the go.
I’d like to describe a Shewee to you, but good taste prevails.
For a change.
The bottom line is that it’s plastic and it’s shaped like – well, it’s for girls who have penis envy.
In other words, no girl ever.
Only a man would come up with the idea that women have penis envy. Because anybody who has ever seen a penis knows that no woman would want one.
You know what’s in men’s pants that we want?
A wallet.
To stay on point, the Shewee is the “the original female urination device.”
Copycats, beware.
Accept no substitutions.
Like a Tupperware funnel.
The website says that the Shewee is perfect for “camping, festivals, cycling, during pregnancy, long car journeys, climbing, sailing, skiing, the list is endless!”
It doesn’t say anything about being middle-aged.
Too bad, because I’m pretty sure that if you’re middle-aged, you’ll want one of these babies. Even if you don’t camp or go to festivals, and your days of pregnancy are behind you.
We know why, don’t we, ladies?
Do I have to spell it out for you – in the snow?
I myself am about to order a gross.
Because it’s gross.
My favorite thing about the Shewee is that it comes in seven different colors.
Oddly, there was no yellow.
If you ask me, that’s a no-brainer.
Get your marketing together, people.
My favorite color was “Power Pink.”
Because nothing says empowered like being able to pee where you want, damn it.
Sayonara, rest stops.
I gonna pee in my car!
Woot woot!
Now you know the perfect gifts for all your girlfriends.
If you get them the wine rack, I guarantee they’re going to need the Shewee.
Copyright Lisa Scottoline 2014
- Column Classic: Twisted Sister March 3, 2024
By Lisa Scottoline
So, it turns out I have an occupational hazard.
I’m not complaining, because at least I have an occupation.
The only problem with my occupation is that I spend a lot of time occupying a chair.
And the first occupational hazard is that my butt is spreading.
What, I can’t blame that on my job?
Fair enough.
Thanks a lot, carbohydrates.
Actually, the best part of my job is that I get to sit around all day in a chair, and I have set up my office so that my desk is in the middle of the room, with the TV to the left. I keep the TV on while I’m working, just to have some background noise that isn’t dogs farting.
But a year ago, my back started to hurt. I ignored it for a while, and then when my book deadline was finally finished, I got my big butt to the doctor, who said:
“We x-rayed your back, and you have scoliosis.”
I thought he was mispronouncing my last name, which everybody does, and I don’t blame them. I tell them Scottoline rhymes with fettuccine, but this word sounded different. Lisa Scoliosis isn’t a good name. I asked, “Scolli-what-is?”
The doctor answered, “It means a rotation of the spinal column, but in your case it’s not congenital. So, you’re an author?”
“Yes,” I told him. I always put that on my medical records, so that my doctors will buy my books. I would say it’s free advertising, but given the general cost of a doctor’s visit, they would have to buy 3,293,737 of my books for me to break even.
The doctor continued, “So you probably spend a lot of time sitting and you must be turning to the left. Why are you turning to the left?”
“Because that’s where the TV is?”
“Hmmm,” he said, just like a doctor in the movies.
Or on TV.
I was getting the general drift, because I’m a mystery writer and I don’t need a lot of clues. “So, you mean to tell me that just because I sat on my butt and watched TV while I worked, for twenty-five years, I rotated my spine?”
“Yes.”
So, this was all TV’s fault. Thank God it wasn’t my fault. It can never be my fault.
The doctor added, “And you’re probably crossing your legs, too.”
I thought about it. “I probably am. How else can you keep a dog on your lap while you work?”
The doctor laughed. He thought I was kidding.
You and I know I wasn’t.
Maybe he should start reading my books. Or this column.
Anyway, I got serious. “Now what do we do?”
“Work out.”
I tried not to groan.
Why is “working out” always the answer?
Why is the answer never “chocolate cake?”
Meanwhile, I tell the doctor that I walk the dogs, ride a bike, and even sit like a lump on the back of a pony, but he says none of this counts. He sends me to physical therapy, telling me to dress comfortably.
I don’t need to be told to dress comfortably.
I’m a middle-aged woman.
We’re too smart to dress any other way.
I’ve already gone to two sessions of physical therapy, which are held in a big open gym with a lot of other people who were sent there for respectable reasons that had nothing to do with watching too much television.
There, I do twenty reps of the Backward Bend, the Press-Up, Bridging, and an array of other horrible exercises, all of which require a Neutral Spine.
This doesn’t come easily to me.
Not only because I hate working out, but because I’m not neutral about anything.
I have opinions.
My least favorite of the exercises is one called Isometric Stabilization, and the directions on the sheet say that I’m supposed to, “Tighten abdominal muscles as if tightening a belt.”
In other words, suck it in.
Oddly, I’ve been doing this exercise my entire life.
In any photo of me, I’m engaging in Isometric Stabilization.
Now I have a sheet of floor exercises to do three times a day at home, with pictures to show me the correct form.
Oddly, none of the pictures show my dogs jumping on my head, licking my face, or walking across my chest while I do the exercises.
Any pet owner who tries to work out at home knows how helpful dogs can be.
If you have twenty reps to do, good luck getting through rep two.
Or maybe they are helpful?
Copyright © Lisa Scottoline
- Column Classic: Thought Bubbles February 25, 2024
By Lisa Scottoline
You’ve probably seen the Dove commercial in which a forensic artist sketches a woman according to her own description of her face and it turns out terrible, and then sketches a second picture of a woman according to a description of her by a stranger, and it turns out great.
Who is surprised by this?
Not me.
I could’ve told you that women are their own worst critics.
I also could’ve told you that composite drawings make everybody look ugly.
If you ask me, even the second pictures of the women didn’t look as good as the women did in reality.
Felons are never that hot.
But the tagline of the campaign is, “You Are More Beautiful Than You Think.”
And everyone is hailing this as a brilliant marketing campaign and a profound way to look at women, or for women to look at themselves.
But you know what I think?
I think it really doesn’t matter if you’re beautiful or not.
Let’s be real.
I don’t need a composite artist to tell me what I really look like, because I have a mirror. And to tell the truth, every time I look in the mirror, I have the exact opposite reaction:
I thought I looked better than that.
It’s not like I have a big ego or think that I’m especially attractive. But I can tell you that when I look in a mirror, it’s a disappointment.
I don’t even want to think about what would happen if I ran into a forensic sketch artist and he started drawing me. I might take his pencil and stick it where the sun don’t shine.
In other words, my own personal tagline should be, “I’m Not As Beautiful As I Think.”
But who cares?
I’m not a model.
I’m a writer, a mother, and a middle-aged woman. Bottom line, I’m fine with how I look, even though I’m not beautiful.
And all I want from Dove soap is to get me clean.
When did a soap company get to be our national therapist?
I wish Dove would get out of the self-esteem business and figure out how to get me even cleaner, longer. Or how to make soap with more suds, because I like a lot of suds.
Dove, don’t flatter me by telling me I’m not only beautiful, but more beautiful than I think. Because I wasn’t born yesterday, and I don’t look it.
In other words, don’t lather me up, just lather me up.
I guarantee we’ll never see a soap commercial like that for men. Nobody will ever sell soap by talking about how men are handsomer than they think. In the first place, most men aren’t half as handsome as they think, but they don’t care about that.
And they’re right.
I like Dove soap, but I don’t need it to build my self-image and I don’t want it to pretend to do so by convincing me that I’m in fact more beautiful than I think, because it assumes that beauty is and should be the key to our self-esteem. What should matter to women is who we are and how we act, and if we set our own dreams and fulfill them, in our lives.
And none of that has anything to do with what we look like.
At all.
And even ugly women deserve to feel good about themselves.
Dove might know something about soap, but their analysis is only skin-deep.
I don’t even give them an A for effort.
I think that this is the softest sell ever.
And you know who’s taking a bath?
Women.
Copyright 2013 Lisa Scottoline
Lisa Live!
Mark your calendars. “Lisa Live” on Facebook every Monday night from February 5, 2024 through March 18, 2024 at 7:30 pm ET, where Lisa will reveal her inspirations behind THE TRUTH ABOUT THE DEVLINS! And then, on Monday, March 25, 2024 join “Lisa Live” for her Virtual Publication Celebration (time tbd!).
And, be sure to join in the Pre-Order Sweepstakes for THE TRUTH ABOUT THE DEVLINS, where you have a chance to win prizes such as a Kindle, a cashmere throw or the Grand Prize of Mikimoto pearl earrings! Lisa will be giving away an exciting prize each week during her “Lisa Live!” That’s one prize each week for the eight weeks leading into the book’s publication on March 26, 2024!
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