Jesus + Magnets = Penetratingly Awesome

I have a maxim in my house when it comes to mail:

"If it's not in an envelope addressed to either me or my wife, or both, it invariably gets thrown in the recycling bin."

This policy bodes rather ill for the following items of mail:

* Solicitations

* Newsletters

* Junk Mail Addresesd to "Current Resident" (Mr. Resident don't live here no more and he can go fuck himself anyway)

* Alumni Horseshit

* Fabric Store Circulars (if I throw these away before Mrs. Apron gets to see them, I risk falling asleep as a little red laser light finds its way between my eyes)

* "Come Pray With Us" ads for local churches

* Catalogs (I hang onto the Vicky's Secret ones for nostalgia)

* Coupons

They say you don't start caring about coupons until you have at least two children. I don't know if there's any hope for me. I lack the attention-to-detail, the patience, the energy and the overall competency to deal with coupons. They require a complex skill set that I just do not possess, and I hardly think that facilitating the squirting out of two kids is going to annoint me with that skill-set that includes the ability to assimilate the knowledge of what goods go with what supermarket/drug store, what goods we are in need of and/or are projected to need prior to the expiration date of the coupon, a reliable place to store the coupons, the ability to utilize scissors without risking a puncture wound, the cognitive ability to remember that one has a coupon for a particular item, go obtain the coupon, place the coupon in a pocket, bring the coupon into the store, select the correct item that corresponds to the coupon in your pocket, and pulling the coupon out of the pocket and presenting it to the cashier while at the check-out lane.

You practically have to be Baruch Spinoza to be able to accomplish that feat. Or at least Ron Jeremy.

It took my father three children, and then about twenty-five more years, to become utterly enamored with coupons. I don't know exactly how it happened, but, one day, I came home and washed my hands in the kitchen sink (some mothers go absolutely bananafuck when you do that) and I happened to glance at the little shelf above their sink-- littered with coupons. It looked like a newspaper supplement had exploded in the kitchen. Coupons for Tylenol Gel-Caps and Vitamin-E and V-8 Juice and grapes and Lemon Joy. It was amazing. They were categorized and piled according to their corresponding retail establishment. It was disturbing.

Sometimes, my father will call me on the phone, like a stockbroker with a hot tip too good to pass up.

"Mummy-- do you eat at Applebees? There is coupon here-- $5.00 off a whole meal!"

A pointed, offended silence inevitably follows before I say something like,

"I am going to hang up the phone now before someone gets hurt."

I don't mean to be insensitive. I know he's just a man who loves his son, and loves his coupons, and wants the two to commune in festive, Jewish, money savingness on common ground. But, at Applebees, ne'er the two shall meet.

My wife enjoys eyeballing the coupon circulars that come to our house and, on the days when she gets home from work before me, she is able to do so. Otherwise, the circulars are shoved into the recycling bin. I know-- it's like throwing away money. But, on Sunday, on our way back from a brief sojourn to Pittsburgh, Mrs. Apron and I got into a huge fight that was precipitated by the existence of a seemingly innocuous McDonald's coupon at her sister's apartment. See? It is possible for coupons to visit upon us untold amounts of unhappiness.

Unless, of course, they're coupons like THIS ONE:


Behold: the healing power of the Copper Magnetic Jesus Bracelet. Thing.

The mere existence of an item like this, you would think, would be enough for me to abandon my reckless, everything-must-go-in-the-bin mentality, but we know I don't change so easily. Not even Jesus with his supercool magnets and wristwear can change me.

Try as he might.

I must say, for $9.97*, (*plus shipping & handling from Heaven) you're getting quite a sweet deal. You get the healing power of Jesus, the penetrating power of magnets, and the soothing power of copper.

That's a lot of power for the money-- and a lot of different kinds of power, too!-- though I'm not sure the average Christian will very much fancy seeing the words "Jesus" and "penetrating" so close together.

I have to confess-- I did, mostly for your edification (I hope you're happy) visit http://www.dreamproductscatalog.com/ to see what other Jesus-related offerings they had to peddle. I admit I was very surprised by what I found on this site.

While I didn't go poking around on the website too too much, the homepage has some of their "Favorite Products." Whose favorites they are and what these people eat out of which garbage cans, I couldn't say for sure, but some of the Favorite Products were:

Cardigan Slipper Socks (only $12.97)

Talking Teaching Teddy (not to be confused with Teddy Ruxpin or Alan Greenspan)

Zip-Up Security I.D. Case (looks suspiciously like "a wallet")

and, my favorite,

The Sleep Bra

"Our Sleep Bra is the most comfortable bra on the planet. It shapes, lifts and supports in a way no other bra can. Its silky, soft fabric stretches to fit any cup size from A to DD, AND it conforms to changes in your body maintaining a perfect fit any time of the month. So comfortable you can even sleep in it. Fashion nylon/spandex import. Available in even sizes 34 through 52."

Knowing that breasts change as the weeks go by in a given month is something that I find funny, which just reinforces the fact that I am emotionally twelve years old. I would also like to go on record by saying how disappointed I was that the aforementioned products on this website had nothing, apparently, to do with Jesus. I would probably pay a hell of a lot more than $9.97 for a Jesus Copper Magnetic Sleep Bra.

Dream Products: take note.