Monday, December 30, 2024

STORE CLERKS NOWADAYS ARE MORE HONEST

 

Years ago, I could try on a dress that made me look as if I were smuggling a sack of potatoes in my underpants, and the sales clerk (probably because she was trying to win some type of bonus for making the most sales in a week) would gush, "Oh, that dress is YOU! You look absolutely stunning!"


I’ve noticed that nowadays, however, seeing that most clerks don’t work on commission or receive sales awards, they have become much more honest…and blunt. This, depending on the situation, can be either a good thing or a bad thing.

 

For example, I was about to purchase a beige sweater one day when a clerk said to me, “Beige is too pale for your skin tone. It will wash you out. The mint green would look much better on you.”

 

I grabbed the green sweater and held it up against me. The clerk was right. The color really brought out my green eyes. Pleased, I bought it.

 

Another time, however, I was trying on a fitted dress and stepped out of the dressing room to look at myself in the three-way mirror. A sales clerk approached and stood silently staring at me, her hand on her chin.

 

“It looks good on you,” she finally said.

 

I smiled, ready to whip out my credit card.

 

“But may I suggest something to go with it?”

 

“Sure,” I said, wondering what it might be. A belt? A colorful scarf? Pearls?

 

“Control-top pantyhose,” she said.

 

I put the dress back on the rack.

 

For some reason, when I’m trying on clothes, the one thing clerks always say to me that really irritates me is, “That outfit looks so slimming on you!” as if they believe they are giving me a compliment.

 

But all I’m hearing is, “Hey, Chubs! You're lucky you found something to camouflage that midriff bulge and those thunder thighs of yours, seeing you're obviously too lazy to go to the gym!"

 

I’ll never forget the day I was Christmas shopping in a mall and I wandered into a store called 5-7-9, which I thought might be a code number or an address. The minute I set eyes on the diminutive clerks, I felt as if I were Gulliver entering the land of the Lilliputians.


It turned out to be a store for petite young ladies who wore sizes 5, 7 or 9.

 

“May I help you?” one of the clerks, a slender blonde in a mini skirt, asked as her eyes made a critical sweep over me. 


I could read her mind just by looking at her expression…“Lady, nothing on you is a size nine or smaller, not even your shoes.”

 

“Thanks, just looking,” I said, heading toward a rack of jackets.

 

“You DO realize that we sell only petite sizes, don’t you?” she persisted, following me.

 

“Yes,” I answered, smiling sweetly. “I’m actually shopping for clothes for my Barbie doll.”

 

Still, sometimes honesty can be a good thing...I guess. I was shopping for a bra in JC Penney one day, and after looking at about 30 different styles, I finally found one I really liked. As I stood there, studying it on its hanger, a friendly looking, gray-haired clerk, who was standing nearby, said to me, “That one doesn’t have enough support for you…and it’s too pointy.”

 

She recommended another bra she thought would be perfect for my shape and size, and I tried it on. I also tried on the one I’d selected. The clerk was right. The one I’d chosen made me look as if I were concealing two road-construction cones under my blouse. The one she’d recommended fit perfectly.

 

So I suppose I really should be thankful for brutally honest clerks, otherwise I’d be walking around in a beige sweater that makes my complexion look embalmed; a dress that emphasizes my saddlebags, and a bra that could poke out someone’s eyeballs.


But store clerks, be forewarned: Don’t, if you value your lives, ever tell me that something looks “slimming” on me.


#   #   #


WISHING ALL OF MY READERS A VERY HAPPY AND HEALTHY 2025!


Sally Breslin is an award-winning syndicated humor columnist who has written regularly for newspapers and magazines all of her adult life. She is the author of several novels in a variety of genres, from humor and romance to science-fiction. Contact her at: sillysally@att.net.








 
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Monday, December 23, 2024

THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS (AN EXHAUSTED WOMAN'S VERSION)

 

 




’Twas the night before Christmas, my house was a mess.

My temples were throbbing from holiday stress.

 

I longed for some sleep, an hour-long nap,

but I still had a mountain of presents to wrap,

and dozens of Santa-shaped cookies to bake. 

Lord, even my eyebrows were starting to ache.

 

“I really need help!” I yelled at my spouse,

frowning at him when he entered the house.

“Time’s running out and I’m so far behind,

I’m losing what little is left of my mind!”

 

Shrugging, he said, “Take a break, get some rest.

Um…you know you have cookie dough stuck on your chest?”

 

“Just help me,” I begged, “I HAVE to get done!

I’ll bake while you wrap – come on, we'll have fun!”

 

“Fun?” he repeated, shaking his head.

“It’s late and I’m tired. I’m going to bed.”

 

“You do, and I swear, I’ll have no recourse.

I’ll call my attorney and file for divorce!”

 

“Okay,” he surrendered, “I’ll wrap while you bake.

Just don’t get upset when I make a mistake.”

 

The moment I started to roll out the dough,

my husband shouted, wanting to know,

“Where’s the tape?  The scissors?  The paper?  The bows?”

 

“On the table,” I snapped. “Right under your nose!”

 

He picked up the paper and tore off a sheet,

without using scissors – a crooked three feet.

Then wrapped the first box, only four inches wide,

using all of that paper, clumped on each side.

 

He noticed a spot where the paper had split,

so he stuck on some bows to camouflage it.

He used so much tape I suspected he might

buy stock in 3-M sometime that night.

 

I cringed as I watched him cut, fold and pleat.

I’d seen better work…at the deli…on meat.

I wisely kept silent and didn’t complain,

because I was desperate (and also in pain).

 

“I’m done!” he declared in an hour or so

(my cookies had burned and I needed more dough).

“Can I please go to bed?” he asked with a yawn.

I nodded, and in a flash he was gone.

 

I stayed up all night, re-wrapping his work,

a project that nearly drove me berserk.

When I finished, the sun was just coming up.

So I heated some coffee and downed half a cup.

 

While sitting (at last) near the brightly lit tree,

the holiday spirit revisited me.

And I felt the magic of Christmas once more…

then slumped in my chair and started to snore.

 

A VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY HOLIDAYS TO ALL OF MY READERS!

#   #   #

Sally Breslin is an award-winning syndicated humor columnist who has written regularly for newspapers and magazines all of her adult life. She is the author of several novels in a variety of genres, from humor and romance to science-fiction. Contact her at: sillysally@att.net.








 

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Monday, December 16, 2024

LONG IN THE TOOTH BUT SHORT IN THE BANK

 


The other night as I was flossing my teeth while gazing into the bathroom mirror, I noticed two small black spots on two of my bottom teeth. I grabbed my toothbrush and brushed them, hard. But the black spots remained.

So now I'm concerned I might be sprouting a crop of cavities, which actually doesn't surprise me. I mean, it's been a while since I've had a dental checkup. 

That’s because my situation is similar to the couple's in The Gift of the Magi. It's the story about a husband and wife who were too poor to buy Christmas gifts for each other, so she cut off and sold her long hair to buy him a chain for his pocket watch, not knowing he'd sold his watch to buy her some decorative combs to wear in her long hair.

Based on the same type of irony in that story, I figure I would have to yank out all of my teeth and put them underneath my pillow, then hope an incredibly rich and very generous Tooth Fairy would pay me a visit...so I could afford to see a dentist.

I hate to admit it, but I actually miss my old dentist, Attila the Driller. Ever since he left the practice, I haven’t been able to keep track of the number of dentists who have come and gone. I’m surprised the office doesn’t have revolving doors – or a conveyor belt with dentists sitting on it.

The last time I had an appointment, due to the unexpected loss of a filling, I had no idea which dentist would appear. I was hoping it would be the one I’d had during my previous visit because he'd inflicted a lower degree of pain than most of the others. But as luck would have it, a totally new guy entered the room.

My immediate thought was, “Great – another one I’ll have to train,” because I have certain pet peeves whenever I have a dental appointment. One of them is not getting the water suctioned out of my mouth fast enough, so I either have to swallow it or choke. Another is x-ray overkill. One night I sat down and calculated just how many dental x-rays I’ve had over the years and I lost count at 550. I figure that by now, I should be able to get a job standing at the top of a lighthouse and guiding ships at sea in the dark of night…with just the glow from my head.

Anyway, this new dentist took one look at the hole in my tooth (a front one on the bottom) where the filling had fallen out, and the first words out of his mouth were, “Let’s get an x-ray.” 

I groaned. “Can’t you just replace the filling?”

He shook his head, “I want to know exactly what I’m dealing with first.” He then explained he had the latest state-of-the-art digital x-ray equipment that practically was radiation-free.

So, although reluctantly, I allowed the tooth to be x-rayed. The fancy new equipment enabled me to see the tooth on a screen right before me. And what I saw resembled the underground tunnel system in one of those ant farms the toy stores used to sell when I was a kid.

“Hmmm,” the dentist said, which I knew from years of experience never was a good sign. “It appears you had a lot of hidden decay underneath the filling that fell out and it’s now decayed all the way into the pulp of the tooth. In fact, you’re also forming an abscess.”

He then began to list all of the procedures and paraphernalia I would need to salvage the tooth. It sounded like an inventory list from “Dental Supplies R Us.” The final total was approximately the equivalent of a down payment on Windsor Castle.

“I’m going to do something called the cold-tooth test on your other bottom teeth,” the dentist then announced.

In the gazillion dental visits I'd had in my life, I'd never heard of such a test. But my gut immediately told me it probably wasn't going to be fun.

“It involves putting a freezing-cold substance on one tooth at a time,” he explained. “When you feel the pain in the nerve, I want you to raise your left hand. When the pain ceases, I want you to lower your hand.”

His explanation did nothing to make the test sound any better. I think the words “pain” and “nerve” might have had something to do with it.

Sure enough, he pressed something that felt like an ice cube against the first tooth.

“Arrggh!” I cried and jumped as the nerve in my tooth viciously stabbed me in protest.

“I said to raise your left hand,” he tersely reminded me.

I raised it.

“Now lower it when the pain goes away,” he repeated, removing the freezing device, or whatever it was called, from the tooth.

I lowered my hand.

He then did the same thing to the next tooth…and the next.  Each time he did, I shouted, “Arrggh!” And each time, he scolded me and reminded me to raise my hand.

By the fifth tooth, I was ready to raise my hand…somewhere directly between his eyeballs.

"I think you should change your last name to Grey,” I muttered when the test finally was over.

The dental assistant burst out laughing.

The dentist, however, just sat there, looking clueless. “You mean like in Grey’s Anatomy?” he asked.

The assistant laughed even harder.

“No,” I said. “Like in that novel, Fifty Shades of Grey, where the main character, Christian Grey, is a sadist who enjoys torturing women!”

“Oh,” he said, his expression serious. “I guess I may have to read it, then.”

I then asked him when he could do the work on my tooth.

“I don’t do root canals,” he said, shaking his head. “I have an endodontist who does, but he's here only on certain days of the month.”

I also knew from experience that just saying the word “endodontist” added at least another $500 to my bill. After all, the guy was a specialist. And anyone who's "special" at anything is expensive.

“I don’t have dental insurance,” I said. “So I doubt I can afford all of this.”

“Well,” the dentist said, “your only other option is to have the tooth extracted and then get a partial denture."

“And how much is that?” I asked.

“Oh, only about $2,000 to $3,000."

I didn't know which planet he hailed from, but in my world, the word “only” is reserved for amounts like $10 or $20, not $2,000 or $3,000.

Even worse, unlike my old dentist, this one didn't accept time-payments. In fact, there was a notice posted in the waiting area that said if you couldn't pay for your visit on that same day, then to reschedule your appointment for a day when you could!

Alas, I had to visit my bank and apply for an equity line of credit to pay for the root canal and crown. The interest rate was around three percent at the time. It's now up to 10.5 percent. So most of my payments thus far have gone straight toward the interest.

I suppose when I finally finish paying off the loan for my last dental procedure, then I’ll go have these two black spots on my teeth checked out.

That is, if I still have any teeth left.

 #   #   #


Sally Breslin is an award-winning syndicated humor columnist who has written regularly for newspapers and magazines all of her adult life. She is the author of several novels in a variety of genres, from humor and romance to science-fiction. Contact her at: sillysally@att.net.








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Tuesday, December 10, 2024

STILL NO TREE TO DECORATE THIS YEAR...

 


One of the Christmas traditions I’ve enjoyed the most throughout the years is decorating the Christmas tree.

When I was a kid, my mom and I would go to a tree lot and pick out a “perfect” one, then Dad would come home from work and set it up. Mom and I then would spend the evening meticulously decorating it. My mother had a degree in art, so believe me, the tree had to look worthy of a museum display. Every ornament had to be exactly the same distance from the end of each branch, and any crooked tinsel just about caused a coronary. But I still enjoyed every minute of decorating. I also loved the smell of a freshly cut tree because it gave the house that true Christmassy scent.

In my family, “artificial” was a four-letter word when it came to Christmas trees. My mother considered them to be an insult to the word “tree,” even a sacrilege. The shiny silver ones that were all the rage back when I was a kid did not, in my mother’s opinion, bear any resemblance whatsoever to an actual tree…unless maybe you were an alien from the planet Zebulon. In fact, she had a theory the trees originally were created in an attempt to recycle all of the discarded aluminum foil that people used when roasting their Thanksgiving turkeys...because once all of that fire-resistant foil reached the town dump, it couldn't be incinerated.

So just about every Christmas over the years, I’ve had a real tree. I must confess however, that in the late 1990s I did lapse for a while when I gave in to all of the excitement over the new fiber-optic Christmas trees with built-in, color-changing lights in their branches. I couldn’t wait to buy one.

Ours was stunning, especially on its built-in rotating base…until the base started making noises similar to those of a race car grinding its gears. That’s when “Peace on Earth” took on a whole new meaning. The fiber-optic tree is now resting in peace with my spiders in the basement.

I still can remember when $5-$10 would buy a live Christmas tree that rivaled the one at Rockefeller Center. And I also remember the first time my husband and I went to a tree farm to chop down our own tree and were shocked when it cost us an "outrageous" $20.

Nowadays, $20 won’t even buy a Christmas branch. In fact, one of my friends spent close to $100 for a real six-foot tree only two years ago. The thought of paying that much for something that’s a needle-shedding fire hazard that will be brown and bald within two weeks has forced me to scout out trees on my own land instead of purchasing one. 

Besides that, I'm cheap.

Unfortunately, although I own nearly eight acres of woodland, finding anything that closely resembles the shape of a Christmas tree is rare. That’s because I have very few fir trees. But I have loads of these weird-looking pine trees that all have nice full branches at the bottom, then halfway up they have an area about two-feet long or more with no branches at all. I don’t know if it’s hereditary, if it’s just the specific type of tree they are, or if they’re all victims of some sort of strange pine-tree balding affliction, but there’s no chance any one of them ever will become finalists in a “prettiest Christmas tree” contest. 

Still, I suppose I have to take into consideration they’re free, so I’m getting what I pay for.

Every year I usually scope out a tree on my land far in advance of Christmas, like in June, and then I keep a close eye on it all year until mid-December…when I chop it down.

I actually had a row of four decently shaped pine trees growing along the road in front of my house. They were only about six-feet tall and although not as full as I’d have liked, they at least didn’t have the typical bald areas on them. So I was certain I’d be all set for Christmas trees for the next four years.

But then the town decided to clear away all of the trees and bushes along both sides of my road. And in the blink of an eye, my precious trees were reduced to piles of wood chips. I was so devastated when I saw their remains, I still refer to the incident as “Pine-pocalypse.”

It took a lot of tromping through the woods and becoming intimately acquainted with every species of tick in New Hampshire before I finally found another tree that might be suitable for Christmas. It was barely five feet tall but full, and I imagined it would look much nicer once decorated. So I kept a close watch on it, making certain no birds sat on it (or worse), no squirrels climbed it, and no deer nibbled on it.

Then the drought struck. And by September the tree had turned a lovely orange-yellow color from top to bottom. There wasn’t even one green needle left on it.

Did the other trees surrounding it look the same way?

No, of course not. That would make too much sense.

So I guess it’s time to venture down into the basement and dig out the old fiber-optic tree (if the spiders will allow it) and see if  it will respond to CPR. I figure I always can drown out the grinding noises the base makes if I crank up the Christmas carols to about 120 decibels.

 #   #   #


Sally Breslin is an award-winning syndicated humor columnist who has written regularly for newspapers and magazines all of her adult life. She is the author of several novels in a variety of genres, from humor and romance to science-fiction. Contact her at: sillysally@att.net.










 


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Tuesday, December 3, 2024

I DIDN'T EVEN GET TO MEET JUDGE JUDY!

 

 

Lately it seems as if every time I mention something that upsets me (examples: the electric company cut an entire row of my trees right down to the ground instead of only trimming the branches as they’d informed me they would; my neighbors’ dogs got loose and attacked me, causing some serious bruising; FedEx tossed a huge package into the woods on my property and I had to climb down into a water-filled gully to retrieve the soggy box), my friends usually respond with, “You should sue them!”

I’ve never sued anyone before, but I’ve been called into court as a witness on several occasions, and although the experiences were interesting, I wasn’t particularly fond of how the defendants’ lawyers always tried to make me (and any other witnesses) sound like someone who either was delusional, high, or a bigger liar than Pinocchio.

The last time I was a witness in a lawsuit was about 15 years ago in small-claims court. I had no clue what to expect because it had been ages since I’d set foot in a courtroom, but visions of TV judges like Judge Judy and Judge Joe Brown kept popping into my head.

When I entered the courthouse, I had to pass through a metal detector, which I’d expected, but then the guard emptied the contents of my purse…which I hadn't expected. While he sorted through endless candy wrappers, wadded-up tissues, lint-covered lipsticks that had lost their caps, and photos so old, I was wearing a paisley mini-dress and platform shoes in them, I made a mental note to clean out my purse.

Later, as I sat in the courtroom and nervously awaited my turn on the witness stand, I soon discovered the most entertaining part of the whole experience...watching the cases ahead of mine.

One of them involved a landlord who took two of his tenants, a married couple, to court because they hadn't paid their rent in months. When the judge asked the couple why they hadn't, they said it was because their refrigerator was leaking and rotting the floor underneath. And even though they had asked the landlord several times to replace the refrigerator with a new one, he’d ignored them. So they, in turn, had decided to ignore paying their rent.

When the judge asked the landlord if he intended to replace the refrigerator, he said no, because he'd solved the leakage problem…by putting a bucket under it.

I couldn't help but wonder what kind of fridge was tall enough to fit a bucket underneath it…one of those old-fashioned iceboxes on legs? No wonder it was leaking. It probably had been delivered by a horse and wagon.

The judge then asked the landlord, "So you think it's perfectly normal to have a bucket underneath the refrigerator?"

The landlord shrugged. "It works."

The judge, looking annoyed, ordered the two parties to step out of the courtroom for a few minutes and try to calmly settle their differences by arriving at a compromise. He then told them to return later and inform him of what they had decided. 

The sound of their raised voices coming from outside the courtroom door a short time later, however, gave me the feeling the only "new" thing the tenants were going to end up getting was a bigger bucket.

Then there was the case of the electrician who hadn't been paid by the contractor who hired him to do the rough-in electrical work on a house he was building.

The questioning went something like this:

Judge: Did you hire this man to do the electrical work on a house you were constructing?

Contractor: Well...not officially.

Judge: Did he do the work?

Contractor: Yes.

Judge: Did he complete the job?

Contractor: Yes.

Judge:  Was his work satisfactory?

Contractor: Yes.

Judge: Are you going to pay him?

Contractor: No.

Judge: Why not?

Contractor: Because I didn't sign his contract, so I didn't have a binding agreement with him.

Judge: But you still allowed him to do all of the electrical work on the house?

Contractor: Yes.

Judge: (Holding up a piece of paper) Is this the contract?

Contractor: Yes.

Judge: (Studying the contract) And you didn't sign it?

Contractor: (Looking irritated and rolling his eyes) Do you SEE my signature anywhere on there?

The expression on the judge’s face all but guaranteed what the outcome was going to be…the contractor not only was ordered to pay the electrician, the judge also included the interest the money could have been earning in a high-yield CD…probably just to teach the contractor a lesson about eye-rolling in court.

Unfortunately, by the time I took the stand two hours later, the judge was in an even less pleasant mood, especially since I also was there in reference to a case concerning another shady contractor.

During the questioning, when I made the mistake of offering a comment to clarify something I’d previously stated, the judge snapped at me, "Ma'am, do NOT speak until you're spoken to!"

After that, I was afraid to open my mouth.

"You? Afraid to talk?" a friend of mine later said when I told her about my day in court. "I'd have paid to see that!"

And if that weren't bad enough, I was informed I might have to testify in yet another case concerning the same aforementioned contractor because the lawyer said that I, an elderly person, probably would be taken more seriously.

Luckily, I wasn’t contacted again.

So what do I think about my friends’ current advice to sue everyone who does me wrong?

Heck, if the lawyer and judge considered me to be elderly and too outspoken way back then, now they probably would think of me as just some senile old hag…someone who can’t see well enough to tell the difference between the neighbors’ dogs and a family of overfed raccoons. So why would I even attempt to sue anyone?

On the other hand, I do have the feeling I’m becoming one of those proverbial “grumpy old ladies,” in my old age…so you never know when or if I just might be tempted to reconsider.

Especially if I can meet Judge Judy.

 #   #   #


Sally Breslin is an award-winning syndicated humor columnist who has written regularly for newspapers and magazines all of her adult life. She is the author of several novels in a variety of genres, from humor and romance to science-fiction. Contact her at: sillysally@att.net.










 

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