Men + Care = Stupid

I have a confession to make:

Recently, I've been experimenting with LUNA bars to see if their consumption will result in some sort of body-altering experience. For the time being, I have yet to grow a vagina.

I thought also that utilizing Dove Beauty Body Wash Go Fresh Energize (Grapefruit and Lemongrass), massaging it over my pigeon chest might possibly cause a pair of fresh, hair covered breasts to pop out, in lactalicious glory-- but this hasn't happened yet. Just like eating "Smart Start" breakfast cereal in the morning hasn't turned me into a sixty-one-year-old woman with irritable bowel syndrome, reading glasses, and frosted hair.

I may choose to take this experiment of mine to the next level, and attempt to shave my face with a Schick Quattro for Women Trimstyle Razor for Women. Maybe I'll make it into the Guinness Book of World Records for being the first man to successfully grow a vagina on his face.

I've always thought that marketing products to men or women was kind of silly. I, of course, understand that it makes sense in clothes. I get that women's underwear is supposed to be frilly, stringy, and go straight up your asshole, and that men's underwear is supposed to have depictions of beer cans or Sponge Bob or the Playboy bunny insignia on it. I get that women's shoes are supposed to be torture devices and that men are supposed to wear Rockports. I understand all this. But I don't understand why men have to have their own soap.

Ladies, welcome to the soap you can't have, and gentlemen, your soap has come in:

Dove's "Men + Care"

According to their website, Dove's "Men + Care" delivers "the refreshing, comfortable clean men want."

Is that so? Well, Unilever, Corp., this soap was obviously designed by women because I'll be more than happy to tell you that all men want is to not smell like crotch-rot, and we can pretty much achieve that by rubbing a stalk of celery around on our taints. Why do we need your special man-boy soap? Will it somehow support and affirm our virility? Will it make our dicks longer? Because that's the other thing men want, aside from not smelling like crotch-rot. Can it do that for us, your new extendick soap? If not, then save your marketing bullshit and keep spending money putting only semi-attractive "real" women in your commercials to make yourselves feel better.

You think men are stupid and that we will buy your ridiculous man-soap. You think we're so stupid that, on your man-soap webpage, there's even a "How It Works" tab. You think we don't know how soap works? Listen-- I know how goddamn soap works, and I don't need to read your horsecaca about "micromoisture" to know that you're jacking me off and telling me it's love.

Here's a newsflash for everyone: soap is soap. Cereal is cereal. Granola goddamn bars are granola goddamn bars.

That's right, you heard it here first: on My Masonic Apron, the only blog out there written by a non-breasticated man who eats LUNA bars.

Happy Monday. Make sure you think of me next time you're rubbing some ridiculous, gender-manipulated product all over yourself in the shower.

Motel You Something

Yes, we're in the Poconos.

No, we're not staying in one of those places with a champagne glass-shaped hot-tub/semen receptacle.

We came here to ski: even if it kills me. And today, after making a wrong turn, I thought it might. At the very least, I took a spill that I was sure had broken both my thumbs. And yetm here I am, blogging on a smartphone- thumbing my merry way into your hearts- God love you and your easily thumbed-through hearts...

So, obviously, my thumbs are okay.

While I'm not usually in the habit of making petty excuses for my varying and colorful ineptitudes, maybe I would have skiied better had I not been utterly sleep-deprived and operating my skis under more of a haze than the average inebriated, blonde-haired, snow-chapped Telemark d-bag, scuttling haphazardly in a fog of Natty Ice and a puffy, goose-down onesie.

The reason for the dearth of sleep experienced by Mr. & Mrs. Apron? Why, the peeps in the room next door.

Apparently, the cheaper motels in the Poconos rent rooms to hoards of donkeys. I was not aware of this little-known business practice, or I might have gone more upscale, you know, like one of those places with the rotating champagne glass jacuzzi and the vibrating toilet. From 9:30pm until at least 2:30am, the mothercunts next door brayed incessantly, at one point drunkenly playing either charades or Pictionary, when I finally acquiesced to my wife's begging me to call the front desk. If anything, this made the donkeys angrier. And louder.

I pictured their room-- hay and feces and donkey hair everywhere. Poor Conchita won'tt like refreshing those towels.

In the morning, I did something I hardly ever do: complain. I know, I do it on the blog all the time, but that's very different. I don't walk up to randomly french-kissing lesbian couples and pull down my pants in real life either. The long and short of it is that the woman at the front desk was very apologetic and moved us to a different room without hesitation.

We'll see if the skiing improves.

Oh, Earth, You are Too Wonderful

There is an old saying-- actually, I don't really know if it's old or not but, if it's not, one day it will be-- that goes something like, "Half of life is just showing up."

If that's true, then there's an awful lot of people out there who aren't very good at life.

Actually, maybe that's not true. Lots of people show up for things-- usually late-- but, even when they do show up, far fewer of them are actually present. In the moment. You can attend a play or a class or a meeting without actually attending.

And that's sad.

What's sadder is that I recently attended a small children's play, and there were the children's parents in the audience, glued to their iPhones, thumbing the little wheels on their Blackberries, totally tuned out to what their children were doing in earnest before them, having worked for weeks on this little performance.

And that's sadder.

I pined for a long time for a smartphone, and I have one (actually, I've had several-- purchased used through Ebay. I think I finally learned my lesson and bought one from the evil orangey retail store) but if you asked me today why I needed one so badly, I wouldn't be able to tell you.

At work, I sit at a computer all day long, and have my personal email on one screen, and my work email on another screen-- so it's not like I'm "unplugged" from the interwebula. At home, the computer is on 24 hours a day, like the domicile of Mr. & Mrs. Apron is some sort of NASA substation or emergency dispatch center. I am not a first-responder (not an active one, at any rate) nor am I a high-powered CEO with a receding hairline and custom-tailored Brooks Brothers shirts. Who am I that I need to receive e-mails while I'm shaking off the last droplet of pee-pee or eviscerating a grilled Reuben?

And yet, with a cheery little "blong!" I am instantly alerted whenever my eldest sister feels compelled to send me the latest Consumer Reports washing machine crash-test results or the local county's update on prevalence of rectal cancer in the area's white-tailed deer population. Why? I don't know.

After the little children's show, I overheard one of the balding parents pontificating to one of the saddle-bag mothers about the ever-growing importance of being "plugged in." He recited some story about someone he knew who received an email at 5:45 on a Friday asking him to come in "stat" for a job interview first thing on Monday morning.

"Well, if he didn't have his Blackberry, and he went away for the weekend-- he'd have screwed himself out of a job-- which he got, by the way. This is the world we live in now. You know what I mean?"

Yeah. I know what you mean. Dog eat dog. Early bird gets the worm. Snooze, you lose. I've got it. It's just that, in this world we live in now, when you smile, your bluetooth looks a little crooked to me.

I wanted my smartphone, but I was scared of getting it, because I thought it would ruin my relationships with people. I saw what it did to my former best friend the last couple of times I visited him in New York. We were sitting at a diner in Chelsea and, every five minutes or so, he would grimace a tad, and I knew he was getting a text or an email from his girlfriend. Yes, he made a "sorry about this" face, but, if he was really sorry, he wouldn't have pulled out the device and pecked out a reply. He might have even done the unthinkable and *gasp* shut it off, to be with his friend who he only saw three times a year.

You know, before he decided to stop seeing me altogether.

Sometimes, my wife and I will be sitting together on the couch, watching television or reading, as we married folk do, and my phone will "blip" or "blong" on the coffee table in front of us, and I will keep reading, or keep watching Sally Field endorse Boniva and play with her fake grandchildren, and my wife will give me an affectionate hug as a thank-you for ignoring the insistent little piece of plastic in front of me. She likes when I don't jump to see who it is, or what it's all about this time. Sometimes being a good husband is less about the things we do and more about the things we don't do.

I hope I'm a good husband. I hope at least I'm a better husband than I am a smartphone user.

I know I'll at least be a better father than those schmucks tapping and scrolling their way through life, while their children perform for, well, nobody really-- because, what's a performance if nobody's watching? There's a beautiful passage in the play "Our Town--" if you've ever seen the play or read it, you already know where I'm going with this. Act III. Emily, dead in her lovely white dress, asks the Stage Manager to go back to Grover's Corners, just one more time. He reluctantly agrees to take her back to a long ago birthday, and she is able to see her parents, puttering around the house, doing parenty things, and she calls out to them, but they cannot hear or see her. Emily tries to tear herself away from their young and smooth faces, from her memories of what was and will never be again, but she cannot. She cries out in anguish:

"Mama, just for a moment we're happy. Let's really look at one another!...I can't. I can't go on.It goes so fast. We don't have time to look at one another. I didn't realize. So all that was going on and we never noticed. Take me back -- up the hill -- to my grave. But first: Wait! One more look. Good-bye , Good-bye world. Good-bye, Grover's Corners....Mama and Papa. Good-bye to clocks ticking....and Mama's sunflowers. And food and coffee. And new ironed dresses and hot baths....and sleeping and waking up. Oh, earth,you are too wonderful for anybody to realize you. Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it--every,every minute?"

If only Thornton Wilder had known about the smartphone. I guess he predicted it.

An Open Letter to NBC

Dear Peacockheads,

Thank you, NBC, for my great Tuesday face-fuck of the day. At least we've gotten it out of the way nice and early.

Thanks so much for canceling "SouthLAnd," easily the best police drama since "Homicide: Life on the Street."

Thanks, also, for ordering new episodes, promising a season premiere on October 23rd, and then canceling the whole fucking thing on October 12th. Ham-handed, bullshit decisions like this really let your integrity and commitment to excellent programming really shine through.

Now, the most exciting thing on NBC is the occasional glimpse of Erin Burnett's neckline when she fills in on "The Today Show."

And to think that the 10:00pm timeslot "SouthLAnd" originally held was given away to Jay Leno, well, that just makes me want to add some vomit to my cry. Wait till it comes out that that pepper-headed chin-wagger anal-whammed all his interns-- then you're going to wish you'd never given him "SouthLAnd's" coveted 10:00pm timeslot.

Apparently, according to you wise sages, "SouthLAnd" was too "dark" or "serious" or "stark" or "gritty" to go on at 9:00pm, as if "Law & Order" (and its seven thousand incarnations) hasn't been scaring the bejesus out of turtle-necked, bowl-cut losers in the midwest for decades. Of course, what you mean is that it's too sophisticated for 9:00pm, but really it's too sophisticated for NBC. This is unfortunate, and it probably means that cable television will pick it up and run it, free from the incessant bleepings that make it sound like an episode of "The Steve Wilkos Show." Maybe HBO will want your cast-offs.

When I used to watch episodes of "Monty Python's Flying Circus" as a boy of 9 or 10, I didn't understand the frequent derogatory references to BBC Programme Planners, comparing them to imbeciles or children or penguins. Now, though, I get it. You have to have one too many chromosomes, or one too few, to be in television program planning. Take a successful show, with taut, intelligent writing, shocking plot twists, characters people care about, high intensity situations, solid ratings, and then you move the time-slot, order more episodes, and then cancel it two weeks before the season premiere is supposed to air.

This just in: people who behave like first graders are supposed to eat glue, not sniff it.

Thanks,
Mr. Apron

P.S. Jay Leno did me in the butt. Happy now?

Thnx 4 Reading

Wht th hll s "thnx?"

I'm sorry, ladies and gentlemen, but we Western society humans type beings like our words with the occasional vowel ensconsed somewhere in there, even if it dies of loneliness. If I get one more email from someone "thnxng" me for something, I think I'm going to key that non-word into my own face.

Don't get me wrong-- I like to be thanked, and I personally would even go so far as to say that I'm not thanked enough, but to be told "thnxs!" in an email is more of a slap on the titty than a genuine display of gratitude in my opinion.

Do I sound like a curmudgeonly, crinkly codger?

Good.

I don't want to be accused of being a sexist curmudgeonly, crinkly codger, but I've noticed, in my anecdotal way, that females are big offenders of the "thnx!" email sign off. I don't know what that is. Is there some sort of hormonal imbalance I'm not aware of that makes it uncomfortable for women of a certain vicissitude to utilize vowels and correct spelling? I was watching an episode of "COPS" where a young female suspect who was being arrested for aggravated battery on her boyfriend shouted, "You know how I am when I'm on my period!" to the arresting officers, her parents, and the rest of middle America. I think it's funny when women blame their periods for their irrational behavior.

Is that why women write "thnxs!" to me? Because they're menstruating? I kind of doubt it.

I could sit here and postulate until my bloggity little fingers fell off, trying to figure this one out. I could blame email culture and texting culture and overall declination of culture, the fact that handwriting is de-emphasized in school, the fact that nuns are no longer permitted to break the tender, pale, freckled knuckles of our nation's Catholic schoolchildren. I could blame Hitler, or the sodding cat, or The Steve Wilkos Show or the Chinese, but I don't really know what good that would do.

It's weird, because I like blaming people as much as anybody, I suppose. Remember that story about taking the axe to our basement wall when I was a kid, and I blamed my sister? I just don't feel like blaming anybody right now-- I guess my heart's just not in it.

I understand sometimes that people are in a hurry, and that writing detailed, long-winded, rhapsodic and prosaic emails just doesn't fit into everyone's PDA calendar, but, Jesus, people, "thank you" is just a little too important. We've truncated "Hello" to "Hi," and that's bad enough. When you thank someone, you're acknowledging that they've done something helpful for you, they've done you a motherfucking solid. Sure, they haven't chiseled your ugly mug on Mt. Rushmore or hand-built you a tool shed replica of the Taj Mahal in your back-yard, but they saved your ass on a PowerPoint presentation, or they made a phone call when you couldn't or they said they'd research what dishwasher performed the best on consumerreports.com and, Goddamnit, that deserves more than a trite, obnoxious, curt little "thnxs!"

In my book, a thank you is a pretty big deal. I like it when people say "thank you" and I'm pretty anal about remembering to say it myself. I know people don't have to do me favors or help me out or pay me a compliment, so, when they do, while I don't bust out a pinata and noisemakers, I make sure to look them in the eye and say "thank you" in a way that communicates to them that I mean it. That's hard to do in an email, but "thnxs!" is a sure-fire way to let someone know that you don't really give much of a damn about what they did for you, or about thank you's in general. I mean, it's about gratitude, people, and, if you're thankful, then express it properly.

Thnxs?!

G fck yrslf!

What "Debit Card Trap?"

An editorial appeared in the New York Times today which cast debit cards in a very negative light. I was initially surprised and hurt by this, as I have debit card. And I love it. It's my flat little bubbie.

It just sits there in my wallet, an innocuous piece of plastic with raised letters and numbers (and no, I won't tell you what they are, you little thievy-poo) and I've never had any reason to think that, one day, my debit card and its sisters, cousins and aunts would be villified in the pages of the New York Times.

But I guess I should have expected it-- everyone and everything gets villified in there at some point, doesn't it?

But actually the editorial wasn't about debit cards, per se, it was about people who use their debit cards when they have no money left in their checking account. Most transactions will still go through as "approved" with the issuing financial institution encumbering the overdraftee with massive overdraft fines.

Here's my question: so what?

It's pretty easy to avoid overdrafting-- mind your balance. Most of us in the modern era check their balances online. I eyeball all of my checking account transactions on my bank's website approximately once a week. Did this check go through? Were my student loan payments auto-debited? How much money am I spending on chinese food this month? Are there any mysterious debits that I did not authorize, like $587 worth of edible panties from www.digestmypuss.com or a $700 anatomically-correct inflatable Warren G. Harding?

I just think it's wise to keep an eye on the shop, you know. That way, I'll know if some pervert has stolen my identity, and I'll also know if I'm getting dangerously close to the figure of naught before I go blow $100 I don't have on bison meat.

I suspect that a lot of people who have to worry about overdrafting and getting slammed with huge fees from their banks run into this problem because they are purchasing things they can't afford. Call me cynical, or a lousy bitch, but I'd be willing to bet that it's true. If you're making $11-an-hour, you probably shouldn't be downloading a dozen ringtones each week for your brand-new iPhone. Maybe you don't really need that 52 inch flatscreen mounted on your wall. Maybe you could brew your coffee at home instead of Starfuxing it up every morning so you can stare at the barista's rock-hard tits.

Living within our means is not part of the American Dream, but it should be. Being responsible about our money isn't part of the American notion of "fun" and "devil-may-care" but it isn't hard and, face it, it's part of growing up. You want to sit around and write columns in the NYT pissing and moaning and whining about how the big, bad bank hurts your feelings with big overdraft charges? Hey-- Big Bad Bank, Inc. didn't tell you to go spend money you don't have.

Checking your bank statement may seem boring, but, once you get into the habit of doing it, it becomes a habit, like everything else-- and you'll feel better once you've started doing it. No more surprises, no more scary fines, no more worrying or wondering if you have enough funds to cover a transaction.

The New York Times disagrees, saying, "Banks must be required to warn customers in real time when a debit card charge will overdraw their accounts — and what fees they will incur if they still decide to proceed with the purchase."

Oh, really?

So the bank is now my mommy or my daddy, reminding me how much allowance they're giving me? Fuck that-- I'm supposed to know how much I have in my back pocket. I hate to sound all Republican here, but whatever happened to personal responsibility? Why can't grown up motherfuckers like you and me be expected to know the balances of our own finances? If we're really that incompetent, then we shouldn't be allowed to have checking accounts and savings accounts and debit cards and credit cards in the first place. I suspect, though, that most of us are competent enough to watch over our own funds-- I just think a lot of us are too goddamn lazy to do it, and we feel better pointing the finger at the bank for punishing us when we do the wrong thing. Because, hey-- we're young, hip, attractive, on-the-go, plugged-in, text-happy, tech-savvy Americans, and we're just not responsible. Who has the time to check their balances in between frappaccino meetings and Samsung evenings?

Well, guess what? We should be more responsible and we should be held accountable. "Know your limit" isn't just good advice for boozies at the bar. It's good advice for all of us.

Harken Ye to this Proclamation

This is a big day.

John & Kate (of "John & Kate + 8," but who are we kidding-- you already knew that, right? OMG! LMT!) are making their "big announcement" tonight.

I can barely stand it.

They've teasing our little cocklettes all weekend with this little tantalizing tongue-carrot since they had their PR rep state on Friday that, on Monday, they'd be making an announcement that will "affect both of them and all of their children and will hopefully bring peace to everyone."

Everyone? Even in Tehran? At first, I didn't think that Iran would permit shows like "John & Kate + 8" on Iranian television, but then I thought, wait a minute-- their mission is to get their people to hate us. And what easier way to accomplish that could there be than to flood Iranian airwaves with fatuous, inane drivel like "The King of Queens," "Rachel Ray," and "John & Kate + 8?" Put enough people in front of a boob tube constantly running shit like that and there'll be lines of people snaking around the block chomping at the bit to fly planes into our buildings.

Anyway, I just can't imagine what their big announcement is going to be. It's probably something lame like they're getting a divorce. Like, big fucking surprise. And also, like, way to be original. Everybody gets divorced-- who gives a shit? The only thing that could be potentially exciting is watching DHS take all their kids away because neither of them are competent enough to parent one child, let alone eight. I would enjoy watching that.

Though I realize that their announcement is probably going to be something mundane like a divorce announcement, I couldn't help hoping that it was going to be something really cool like that they've decided to do an on-air murder/suicide pact. Or that they were both actually the opposite gender and that they're going to have sex-reassignment surgery, also on air. Or that they've decided to pursue different career options-- he's going to pilot hot air balloons over the Pacific Northwest, she's going to become a champion ice-fisher.

Maybe the announcement has less to do with them and more to do with the kids. Maybe they've decided to sell all the kids on E-bay. If you win two or more, do you think they'd combine shipping to the United States & Canada? They strike me as the kind of folks that would combine shipping.

Somewhere, though, somewhere deep down in the tendrils and the coils of my tiny little, tired old brain, I had another glimmer of a notion of a thought about what their little announcement might be. Maybe.... just maybe... maybe this idea, this strange little idea they've had to instill some peace and tranquility in their lives and the lives of their children is to.... not be on television anymore....

Can it be?

Can they really have figured it out? Did they somehow get bitten on the tushie by the enlightenment bug and henceforth realize that whatever monies they're receiving from TLC and whatever noteriety (none of it's any good anyway) just isn't worth it at the cost of their children's future? Is it really possible that these two douchebags have seen the light?

Nah.

That bitch is just becoming an ice-fisher. And I hope she catches a big one.

An Open Letter to the D-Bags Sitting in Front of Us At the Opera

Dear D-Bags,

Hi.

I'm the guy who was sitting in back of you last night at the Academy of Music for the Savoy Opera Company's production of The Pirates of Penzance. You probably don't remember me, but I remember you.

What I remember vividly was you screwing around on your fucking Blackberries. During the overture. It's funny-- Sullivan didn't compose many of the overtures himself, usually leaving that task to colleagues like Alfred Cellier, who arranged the Pirates overture. Do you know why Sullivan didn't compose many of the overtures himself? Because of inconsiderate, shitnecked little fucktitties like you.

Sullivan was extremely dismayed after opening night of Yeomen of the Guard. He took great pains to compose a beautiful, soaring overture-- and the audience talked all the way through it. He swore that he would never compose another overture himself again. Of course, he also was always swearing that he would never work with Gilbert again. And again. And again. And he always did. And he wrote two more overtures himself, for the Gondoliers and The Grand Duke. And I'm sure people talked all through those, too.

People like you.

You see, people have been rude dicklicks in every century. They've always found ways to be self-important little tadgers, but now cellphones make it so much easier to be an asshole in a dark theatre. The iridescent glow from your screens are so distracting and so obnoxious.

I realize that you must be extremely important, you waifish, slightly intoxicated blonde tramp with your metrosexual husband thing. An on-call neurovascular surgeon, perhaps? The mayor of Seattle in for a visit? A CIA operative? Or maybe you're General David Patraeus after undergoing a covert gender reassignment procedure.

Maybe.

But you're probably just an asshole.

Did you like how, after the overture concluded, I made it a point to clap extremely loudly and extremely close to your left ear? That's my passive/aggressive way of saying,

"Hi. I'd like to bury your Blackberry inside your cerebellum."

You're lucky it was me and not my hotblooded, Israeli father sitting behind you, or he would have killed you with a Mossad tactical maneuver that involves the rapid insertion of a big, hairy thumb into the back of your skull.

It's funny-- I was outraged at paying $50.00 for a theatre ticket, but I did it anyway because a friend of mine was in this show, and I love Gilbert & Sullivan like I love little else. I thought that, by paying $50.00 for a seat that I had paid for my right to witness this show in relative freedom for annoyances or disruptions. You paid $50.00 for a theatre ticket, and you believe that paying this amount gave you the right to behave like a total asshole-- snickering at your texts and private, very loudly whispered jokes all through the first act. You obviously wanted to be somewhere else, and that was clearly indicated by the fact that you and your annoying companions left at intermission.

I realize that you're too uncultured to appreciate Sullivan's music and that you're too stupid to understand any of Gilbert's humor anyway, so it's just as well that you buggered off to go get even more drunk at some ridiculous hipster bar where you pay way too much for drinks you don't even like and drunktext your soulless, vapid friends who don't care about you.

You had no business being at that show. You weren't socially awkward or wearing a bowtie, you didn't have buck-teeth or a back-parting or seersucker trousers or saddle-shoes. Gilbert & Sullivan is clearly not your speed. And I'm glad you realized that early, so that my wife and I could enjoy Act II-- the entrance of the delightfully timid constables, the clever device of invoking Queen Victoria's name, the delightful plot contrivance and the most ingenius paradox.

El Diente Azul

That means "the blue tooth," in Spanish! Aren't I cultured?

So, here's my question for my small but loyal blogdience:

Do people who walk around with bluetooth headsets in their ears still look like d-bags?

Please feel free to regale me and others with your perspectives on the matter, because I'm actually dying to know. I'm still kind of on the fence about what I think, which is unusual for me. I can certainly remember having a pretty crystal clear opinion of those who chose to adorn themselves with a bluetooth headset: I didn't think much of them. You remember thinking it, too:

Who were these self-important assholes?

Why did they insist on walking around in public wearing these unwieldy contraptions affixed to their heads?

Why did they want to walk around looking like some awry medical experiment?

Why did they keep the thing in their ear even when they weren't expecting a phone call?

We looked at them with a mixture of scorn, contempt and thinly-veiled outrage. "You're no Secret Service agent!" we wanted to scream at them, but didn't-- just in case they were.

Of course, it was all envy, anybody could have seen that. It was envy and a covetous disposition that could only be quelled by, what else: getting a bluetooth.

I capitulated maybe a year ago, at Staples. I got one for me, and one for Mrs. Apron. She's usually very anti-whatever's-trendy, and we'd relished in making fun of people who wore bluetooth headsets, calling them "cyborgs" and "assholes." So, I hedged my impetuous purchase with a lie,

"I think they're making it illegal in Pennsylvania to talk on the phone in the car without one of these..."

Mrs. Apron grabbed the package out of my hand.

"COOL!" she squealed. Well, so much for that.

After a long time of using this device, I'm not so sure it's a whole lot safer to talk on a hand-held phone while you're driving than it is to talk on a bluetooth while you're driving. I mean, the content of the call is the same, and if your girl, Moesha is telling you all about getting her bitchass smacked up by her baby daddy, chances are you're going to be just as excited, irate, and animated.

Right?

It is amazing, though, how the combination of the passage of time coupled with the acquisition of a device yourself remarkably alters how you view others with the same device. Now, when I see someone in the supermarket and their right ear is glowing, I don't automatically want to run them over with my shopping cart. It's just like any other invention, I suppose-- at first it's eyed suspiciously, but then, eventually, you adjust to its prominence. Like the iPod. Like the airbag. Like the Beetle. Like locking people with autism away in residential facilities and/or basements. Like Cheez-Whiz.

You just get used to these new-fangled ways.

Unfortunately, the bluetooth earpiece does somewhat contribute in a predictable way to the increase of noise pollution, as people with bluetooth headsets are much more likely to gab in public places. Here was the conversation I heard a young man having with his associate on a bluetooth while I was returning my shopping cart at Target.

"Yeah, man, I mean-- I know he like to get 'em while they all fresh and pure and shit, before they got all kinds of mutha' fuckin' diseases an shit, but like-- fourteen? I mean, shit. That's kinda young, you know?"

Yes. I do. And I'm glad you do, too.