Tuesday, December 2, 2025

AT THE TIME, I THOUGHT THE MONEY TREE WAS A GREAT IDEA

 

As I’m writing this, it’s Cyber Monday, which means I should be shopping online, as about a zillion other people are doing at the moment.

Unfortunately, because there are so many people feverishly shopping, I tried but failed to even get online because I kept getting an error message that said to try again later. After trying about 25 “laters” without any success, I dozed off.

It's the same every December. Without fail, I spend countless hours searching online for new and unique Christmas gifts. I’m not satisfied unless the gifts I give incite a chorus of “oohs” and “aahs” and gasps of “Where on earth did you find this? I’ve never seen anything like it before!”

I have to confess, however, some of the gasps  my gifts have incited probably couldn't be described as pleasurable ones…more like gasps of horror…but hey, at least I tried.

Still, I’d like to think my successes have outweighed my failures.

And speaking of failures, I often am reminded of one of my several less-than-successful gift ideas, mainly because I’d initially been so excited about it.

Back then, during my annual holiday search, I truly believed I’d finally found the perfect “ooh"-inspiring gift, one that would be suitable for everyone on my list. It was an eye-catching Christmas-tree-shaped candle covered with green glitter. But it wasn’t just any ordinary holiday candle. No, this candle was called the Money Tree, according to the title printed in big letters on the decorative box it came in.

The description of the candle stated that when it was lit, it melted down until it revealed genuine U.S. money (wrapped in protective foil) hidden inside. The lowest amount each tree was guaranteed to contain was one dollar. The highest was $50. I thought the candles sounded both intriguing and exciting…the equivalent of a 3-dimensional lottery scratch-ticket, which most people I know really enjoy. I mean, anyone who's ever been to one of those Yankee gift swaps during the Christmas season knows what I'm talking about. One minute the person opening a gift is saying, "Oh, what a lovely crocheted scarf!" And then in the very next breath, "But I want to trade it for the scratch tickets."

So I ordered a case of the candles.

When they arrived, I felt it was my duty to immediately test one to determine whether or not it was gift worthy. I opened one of the boxes, removed the candle and lit it.

Then I eagerly waited…and waited. And then I waited some more.

The candle burned so slowly, I figured that by the time it actually revealed the reward inside, the money would be rare, collectible currency. I was tempted to just grab a butcher knife and hack open the candle, but I was worried I might damage a $50 bill in the process, so I continued to wait.

As the candle melted, it formed a glittery green pool on the plate I’d had the good sense to put underneath it. I blew on the candle, thinking it might burn faster, but all I succeeded in doing was blowing out the flame.

Finally, after standing there so long while waiting for the candle to reveal my impending treasure, my eyeballs were flickering, I saw a flash of silver poking out of the wax. Without thinking, I reached to grab it.

“Yeeeoooww!”  I shouted, frantically blowing on my glittery, wax-covered fingertips. That’s when I happened to notice, written in bold letters on the back of the box, “Tweezers, not bare fingers, should be used to remove the money from the candle!”

I rushed to find my tweezers, then grasped the silvery treasure and yanked it out of the candle.

It was a foil-wrapped Susan B. Anthony dollar.

I frowned, upset that I’d nearly burned off most of my identifiable fingerprints for only a lousy dollar. Even worse, each candle had cost me nearly $15.

Still, I mailed a couple of the candles to my out-of-state friends, including one to my friend Pam in Scotland. For that one, I had to pay so much for the postage, I expected the package to be sitting in a first-class seat at the front of the plane and being served champagne.

I kept the rest of the candles to wrap and give to other friends on my list.

But when one of the out-of-state friends called me the week before Christmas to tell me she’d already lit her candle and it had contained a $20 bill, I found myself staring greedily at the remaining candles, which I'd already wrapped.

“I can always buy scratch tickets for Angie,” I reasoned as I tore into her gift and lit the candle.

After what seemed like 200 hours later, another Susan B. Anthony dollar finally emerged.

So I decided to try just one more candle…and then another.

I ended up with a nice collection of Susan B. Anthony dollars (and then had to rush out to buy last-minute replacement gifts).

On New Year’s Day, Pam in Scotland informed me she still hadn’t received my gift.

That night, as I was lying in bed, a scary thought crossed my mind about the delay of Pam's package. What if when it was x-rayed by Customs, they’d noticed that the candle contained something  hidden deep inside…something wrapped in foil, which was guaranteed to raise a bunch of red flags?

After that, I expected the police to burst through my door at any moment and arrest me for suspicion of smuggling contraband inside Christmas-tree candles.

“Well, if they do,” my husband said with a shrug when I expressed my concerns to him, “at least I can bail you out of jail with Susan B. Anthony dollars.”

Nobody likes a wiseguy.

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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, November 25, 2025

WHY ARE SOME CHRISTMAS TOYS SPECIFICALLY MADE TO TORMENT PARENTS?

 


It seems as if every few years some toy comes out that turns normally level-headed adults into rampaging, aggressive maniacs who will push, shove and stomp on anyone who dares to get in their way during their frenzied quest to procure it for Christmas for one or more of their children or grandchildren.

I remember the bruises several of my friends were sporting after joining the stampedes for Cabbage Patch Kid dolls and any newly released member of the Beanie Babies clan. 

And then there was the Furby, the fuzzy little computerized creature with huge eyes, that forced me to waste about 200 hours on a futile search because my young niece desperately wanted one. I ended up spending $150 on eBay to finally get one...well, actually two. For some reason, the seller insisted on selling them in pairs. But by that point, I probably would have bought a dozen of them, even if I had to mortgage the house, just so I could get some rest.

I gave one of the Furbies to my niece for Christmas and stuffed the other one into a trunk in the basement so I never would have to look at its buggy-eyed, smirking face again.

That is, until a few days ago.   

I happened to see this online article about items people might have lying around in their homes that could make them very rich. As my eyes scanned the list, they locked on the words, "Original Furby, still in the box."

My heart began to pound because the value was listed in the thousands of dollars. I couldn't believe that something I'd resented for so many years now could turn me into a thousand-aire. I dashed down to the basement and rummaged through every trunk down there until I found the 27-year-old toy. I gave it a quick once-over and was relieved to see it still looked fresh and new, even after spending so many years sitting in a trunk.

I hurried back upstairs and checked out the particular color of my Furby (white with blue eyes) on eBay to see what he currently was selling for. My fingers actually were trembling as I hit the "search" key.

The Furbies like mine were selling for a whopping $25 each.

So mine currently is back in its trunk in the basement…never to see the light of day again, if I can help it.

I've heard that this year, the aforementioned stampeding and hair-pulling is over some toy called Labubu, which is described as a plush little monster with lots of teeth. I've never seen one, so I wouldn't recognize one even if it stood right in front me. But I doubt that will ever happen because according to the news, Labubus have been sold out everywhere since July. 

Fortunately, no one on my Christmas list wants one. My body is much too old and rickety now to withstand hunting for a toy that might end up sending me on a trip to the emergency room after a woman built like Xena, Warrior Princess, tackles me and rips the toy out of my hands.

I don't have any children or grandchildren, so I suppose I've suffered a lot less holiday stress over the years than people who do, especially those who annually are tasked with trying find whatever toy is hot that Christmas. 

About 12 years ago, however, I unexpectedly did find myself searching for yet another toy that was impossible to find, all because I wanted to do a good deed.

On that particular day, I'd stopped by the town hall to pay my property taxes, which usually are due the week before Christmas (talk about a bunch of Scrooges!), when I noticed a Christmas tree with children's wish lists attached to the branches. I inquired about the tree and was told it was there so people could choose a child's list and buy the gifts on it, then bring them back, unwrapped, to the town hall for delivery by Santa to that child. I thought it sounded like a great idea, so I grabbed a list.

I was heading directly to Concord to do some shopping anyway, so I figured I probably could pick up a few items on the list at the same time. It wasn't until I was standing in the middle of a department store that I actually took my first good look at the list. It said the child was a four-year-old girl, and the first item she wanted was Doc McStuffins.

I had no clue who or what Doc McStuffins was. My first thought was pajamas – like the Doctor Dentons from my childhood days. I headed to the kids’ sleepwear department. There, I approached a female clerk who looked about my age.

“Do you have Doc McStuffins?” I asked her.

She just stared at me.

“I think they’re pajamas,” I added. “For little girls.”

The clerk helped me look through the pajamas. We found every type imaginable, with pictures on them of every children’s character ever created. But there was nothing about a Doc McStuffins.

“Well, if Doc McStuffins isn’t pajamas,” I said to the clerk, “what do you think it might be?”

She looked thoughtful for a moment. “Well the 'Stuffins' part sounds like it could be a stuffed animal. It might be a teddy bear or something dressed up like a doctor.”

That sounded logical. I rushed over to the toy department and searched through a virtual zoo of stuffed animals but didn’t see anything that resembled a doctor…although a couple of them did remind me of my own doctor back then, especially when he didn’t comb his hair or shave.

I found a young male clerk in the toy department and asked him about Doc McStuffins. Again, I received only a blank look. I was beginning to think that this McStuffins character was only a figment of the four-year-old’s imagination.

“I've never heard of Doc MStuffins,” the clerk finally said. “Is it a game?”

I shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine. It could be a brand of mattress for all I know!”

He told me to wait a minute and he’d see what he could find out. He disappeared for a short while, then returned and said, “It’s a doll from Disney… and we’re all sold out. From what they tell me, it’s also sold out everywhere else, and going for big bucks now on eBay.”

Suddenly the whole Furby fiasco and the $150 I'd had to spend, all came rushing back to me in a flash of painful deja vu.

I groaned. Leave it to me, I thought, to pick a child who wanted a gift that would require me to either go to 25 different stores or end up in a bidding war on eBay...only to get outbid during the last two seconds of the auction.

Even worse, I still had no idea what Doc McStuffins looked like. Sure, at least I knew it was a doll, but was it even a human?  Knowing Disney, it could have been something like a talking wart hog.

After browsing through Target, Walmart and all of the Steeplegate Mall, I was ready to admit defeat. That's when I decided to stop at Toys R Us, just for the heck of it. Once inside, I headed straight for the doll aisle. I checked out so many dolls, I nearly forgot what a real human face looked like. Finally, I tracked down a clerk…who appeared to be human.

I was so tired by then, I mistakenly blurted out, “Do you, by some miracle, have any Doc McMuffin dolls?”

He smiled in amusement. “You mean Doc McStuffins?”

I burst out laughing. “God, I sound as if I’m at McDonald’s!”

“I think I saw one in the preschool department,” he said. “Over this way.”

The entire time I was following him, I silently prayed he was leading me to what I suspected would be the last Doc McStuffins doll in the entire state, or maybe even the entire country. We finally arrived at an aisle that had a lot of empty spaces on the shelves. My heart sank. If Doc McStuffins had been there, I was pretty sure he or she now represented one of those empty spaces.

The clerk rubbed his chin and stood staring at the shelves for a moment, then he moved aside a couple large Playskool toys so he could see what was behind them, and pulled out a small plastic package with some tiny figures in it.

“Here you go,” he said, smiling, and walked off.

I clasped the package to my chest and frantically looked around, making certain no one was going to leap out from behind one of the floor displays and yank it away from me. When I was certain the coast was clear, I finally looked at what I was holding. In the package was a small African American doll wearing a white lab coat and a stethoscope. A glittery pink and purple doctor’s bag was in her hand. She looked no older than five or six. Next to her were several tiny stuffed animals sitting on an examination table. I figured she must be a veterinarian…for toy animals.

Clutching my newly found treasure, I rushed to the register to pay for it before some sleep-deprived, desperate parent accosted me. The minute I got home, I looked up Doc McStuffins on eBay. The clerk at the first department store had been right. The doll I’d just bought was selling for five times what I’d paid for it. A variety of other Doc McStuffins toys in larger sizes were selling for even more.

So I hopefully made a little four-year-old's Christmas a very happy one that year. But to this day, I still wonder if maybe I should have tacked the following note onto the Doc McStuffins package: “Merry Christmas! But do not open this or play with it! Wait a few years and then sell it. If you’re careful with and kind to your toys, one of them very possibly could fund your college education someday.”

That is, unless it's a Furby.


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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, November 17, 2025

I'M READY FOR "DEATH BY PIZZA"

 

I’ve been craving pizza to the point of distraction lately. It seems as if everywhere I turn, pizza keeps popping up to taunt me – on TV, the Internet, supermarket flyers and even my friends raving about someplace they recently went for pizza and how it was the best thing they’d ever eaten.

Which is why I’m on the verge of un-friending all of them on social media.

The problem is I haven’t been able to eat pizza since the 1980s, when I received the news from my doctor that all of my years of stomach pains and terrible cramps were due to the fact I was both lactose and fructose intolerant. I immediately was put on a diet that eliminated both offenders…which basically meant if something tasted good, I couldn’t have it. However, if it tasted like wallpaper-paste spread on a sheet of cardboard, then I was in luck.

Anyway, to confirm just how desperate I am for pizza right now, I’d even settle for one of those squares of pizza they used to sell at the drive-in movies – the squares that were sprinkled with powdered cheese and sat under a light-bulb for five hours to keep them warm. I think they were the same squares the ladies in the school cafeteria used to dole out on Fridays, back when it still was considered a big sin to eat meat on that day.

My first taste of real, fresh Italian pizza was back when I was about 11 and the local YMCA held weekly dances for kids in the fifth and sixth grades. Not far from the dance was a pizza parlor where a group of us would head afterwards and each get a huge slice with extra cheese, for only 25 cents. Add a Coke and it was 35 cents. I’d then spend the entire week craving another slice…or more. To this day, I still don’t know if I went to those dances because I enjoyed the dancing or just because I was hooked on that pizza.

If my late husband still were here right now, my torture would be even more unbearable. The man’s entire diet consisted of cheeseburgers and pizza. In fact, when one of the pizza chains came out with an actual cheeseburger pizza, he couldn’t have been more excited if he’d won the lottery.

It never ceased to amaze me, however, that he liked pizza. I mean, he was the type who wouldn’t even so much as try certain foods because he judged them solely on the way they looked. He wouldn’t eat rice because it looked like maggots. He wouldn’t eat spaghetti because it looked like worms. He turned his nose up at spinach and lettuce because they reminded him of the grass and weeds out in our backyard. And the one time I attempted to serve him mushrooms, he accused me of trying to kill him.

“So how on earth did you ever talk yourself into trying pizza for the first time?” I couldn’t resist asking him. “Let’s face it, pizza can resemble a lot of disgusting things if you’re judging it only by its looks.”

He said he’d gone out clubbing with a group of his army buddies one night, and after a few drinks the guys had been hungry and ordered pizza. My husband had been determined not to have any, but the guys made bets on which one of them could succeed in “convincing” him to try it.

I had the feeling the winner of that bet probably had to physically restrain my husband and shove that first bite down his throat. But whatever method the guy used, the rest was history. A new pizza-lover had been born. 

I was tempted to ask my husband for the name of the guy so I could hire him to come over every night and also “convince” him to eat a few peas or carrots. My husband’s reason for refusing to eat carrots was because they were most commonly seen as noses on snowmen, so whenever he saw a carrot, he associated it with boogers (I’m totally serious here).

Throughout the years, he and I must have visited every pizza parlor/restaurant within a 300-mile radius. The minute a new one opened, we would race to it as if the owners were giving away $100 bills.

To my embarrassment, no matter what type of restaurant we were in, my husband still would ask if they had pizza. One time, when we went to a Chinese restaurant with friends (their choice, not ours, of course) and he asked the server if they had pizza, I nearly burst out laughing at the poor guy’s bewildered expression. As he stood there in front of a wall festooned with Chinese dragons, he looked as if he wanted to say, "Seriously, does this look like an Italian restaurant to you?"

But there was another time when my husband asked for pizza and I couldn’t control my laughter. It was the year we celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary with a trip to Las Vegas. On the night of our anniversary we decided to put on our best clothes, go to a fancy restaurant and splurge on an expensive meal – one that was served on actual plates with real silverware laid out on tables that featured linen tablecloths and napkins.

So I cringed when my husband asked the man who took our order if they had pizza. To my shock (and my husband’s delight), he said they could make one especially for him.

Sure enough, a formally dressed server delivered his pizza on a round, pedestal-type serving platter with a lid on the top. Using a silver pie-serving utensil, he delivered one slice to my husband’s plate and then stood there, his hands behind his back, patiently waiting until my husband finished chewing and was ready for the next slice, which he again served to him.

I chuckled as I ate my steak and watched the expression on my husband’s face grow more and more pained as the server continued to stand there and repeatedly ask, “Are you ready for another slice, sir?”

My husband had never had any problem eating an entire pizza in one sitting, but after he choked down slice number three-and-a-half, he told the server he was full and asked if he could take the rest back to our hotel. When we saw the bill, we determined it had to be the most expensive pizza in the history of pizzas. Even worse, my husband said it wasn’t even half as good as Pizza Hut’s.

But to me it was worth every penny because it gave me something to tease him about for years.

After my husband retired, his knees became so stiff and painful, he had to use a walker and rarely left the house. So I became the official pizza pick-up person for him, mainly because no one delivered any type of food to the prehistoric rainforest where we lived.

Depending on his mood, it was a different place every week – Domino’s, Pizza Hut, Giovanni’s or one of the  many “Houses” of Pizza…Espom House, Suncook House, Hooksett House, Supreme House, Out House (okay, maybe I made up that last one). If Door Dash had been around back then, I could have made a lot of extra money picking up pizzas and delivering them, seeing I was going to be at just about every pizza parlor in the area at some point anyway.

Many times when I was grocery shopping, my husband would call me and ask if I could pick up a pizza on my way home. I always did, but one afternoon a big snowstorm was rolling in, so I wanted to get home as soon as possible.

“That’s okay,” he said. “Just grab one of the pizzas they sell in the deli. It will do.”

That sounded easy enough. “Okay.”

“And seeing you’re in the supermarket,” he added, “maybe you also can pick up a package of mozzarella, some pepperoni, grated cheddar cheese and a pack of ground beef to add to the pizza…you know, to make it taste a little better?”

It ended up costing me about $25.

But now I think I finally do understand my husband's constant craving for pizza and can empathize, mainly because I would be willing to sell one of my kidneys for just one slice right about now.

Of course, after I ate it my stomach would cramp up in protest and seek its revenge by forcing me to camp out in the bathroom for about three days.

But still…I’m seriously considering it.

And while I’m at it, I figure I also might as well treat myself to some ice cream for dessert…with half a can of real whipped cream on top.

After all, if I’m going to suffer, I want to make certain it’s really worth it.


 

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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, November 10, 2025

THANKSGIVING ALWAYS MAKES ME WONDER ABOUT GOOD OLD "CHESTER"

 

Every year as Thanksgiving Day approaches, I always think back to the wild turkeys that used to show up on my property every morning to clean up whatever the birds dropped out of the bird feeder.

The first time the turkeys arrived – two really big males and three hens – I stared at them in awe through the kitchen window. 

That’s because before we moved out to the middle of nowhere, the only turkeys I’d ever seen up close were in supermarkets and had “Butterball” printed on them.

I was fascinated watching the turkeys and learning about their habits. One thing I learned that really surprised me, however, happened one morning when I let my dogs out into the yard without checking first. The second the turkeys spotted the dogs, they all took flight up into the nearest pine trees.

Up until then, thanks to a 1978 episode of a TV show called WKRP in Cincinnati, I'd always believed turkeys couldn't fly.  In that particular episode, called "Turkeys Away," the radio station, as part of a Thanksgiving promotion, dropped live turkeys (which were meant to be prizes) from a helicopter into a shopping center. The newsman covering the event gasped out something like, "The turkeys are crashing to the ground right in front of my eyes!" and the station manager groaned, "I swear, I thought turkeys could fly."

Anyway, one day, as the aforementioned two males and three hens were merrily pecking away at the seeds underneath my feeder, a new male, a loner, approached the group. He looked scrawny compared to the other two males, and he also had a prominent limp. Still, he didn’t seem easily intimidated when one of the big males attempted to scare him off. No, that scrawny, limping turkey stood his ground and was prepared to fight back.

So eventually the group allowed him to hang out with them.

My husband started calling him Chester, in honor of one of his favorite characters on the old TV show Gunsmoke (for those of you who are too young to remember Gunsmoke, Deputy Chester Goode was a main character who had a bad leg and hobbled around Dodge City).

I enjoyed watching Chester (the turkey), especially in his efforts to attract one of the hens. I suspected he might have sensed she was the odd female out…that the other two hens already had claimed the two big males as theirs, so she was fair game.

Every time she walked by Chester, he’d fan out his tail, puff out his chest and strut around with his wings dragging on the ground. And every time he did, she completely ignored him. The minute she’d walk off, leaving him standing there, he’d deflate like a punctured balloon. His chest would go flat, his fanned-out tail would droop and his head would hang. It was a pretty sad sight.

“I feel bad for poor Chester,” I said to my husband. “He tries every single morning to get the attention of one of the hens and she just snubs him. Do you think she’s rejecting him just because he has a limp?”

“Nah,” my husband said. “She’s probably just playing hard to get.”

A few days later, Chester showed up looking as if he’d been attacked by a gang of thugs. His tail feathers were sticking out at odd angles, one wing was drooping, and his limp was even more pronounced. I wondered if maybe he’d tried to get too friendly with the hen of his dreams and she’d retaliated by beating him up…either that, or he’d been hit by a car.

Still, even in his pathetic-looking condition, Chester continued to show off in front of the hen…and she continued to act as if he were invisible.

It took another few days, but early one morning something strange happened. Chester, as usual, was trying to capture his beloved hen’s attention, when she suddenly walked over to him and stretched out on the ground right in front of him. I had no idea what her actions meant, so I rushed to my computer and looked up information on turkeys’ body language.

“When a hen is ready to breed with a gobbler,” it said, “she often will lie down on her stomach in front of him and wiggle her tail as a signal.”

I was so excited, I woke up my husband. “Chester’s finally going to get lucky!” I shouted as I burst into the bedroom. “His persistence finally paid off! I’m so thrilled for him!”

My husband apparently didn’t share my sentiment. “Please tell me you’re not planning to videotape the event,” he muttered, then rolled over and went back to sleep.

I didn’t see Chester or the hen for quite a while after that. I started to worry that maybe Chester accidentally had killed her in a fit of pent-up passion, or maybe she had died during childbirth (egg birth?).

But one morning, to my surprise and delight, out of the woods strutted Chester, the hen and eight little ones (a.k.a. “poults”). I was so happy for the new family, I felt like throwing a party for them. 

Once again, I woke up my husband.     

“We’re surrogate grandparents! Chester’s girlfriend had babies!”

This time, he actually climbed out of bed to join me at the window. Just as he did, Chester lowered his head and charged at the hen when she tried to get too close to him while he was eating.

“Hmph! Look at that!” I said. “Now that she’s had his kids, he’s chasing her away!”

“I told you he wanted her only because she was playing hard to get,” my husband said. “He’s probably bored now.” He stared at Chester for a moment before he added, “You know, fatherhood really seems to be agreeing with him, though. He’s filled out a lot. I wonder how much he weighs now?”

I narrowed my eyes at my husband. “You’re picturing him smothered in gravy, aren’t you?”

He chuckled. “I plead the fifth. I’m going back to bed now.”

The last time I saw any turkeys on my land was over four years ago. I often wonder what happened to Chester and his little family, especially during this time of year.

But unlike my late husband did, when I think about Chester, I’m not picturing him roasted and lying on a turkey platter on the Thanksgiving table.


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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, November 4, 2025

I CAN'T FIND ANYONE BRAVE ENOUGH OR CHEAP ENOUGH TO PLOW MY DRIVEWAY THIS WINTER

 


I realize the skiers, snowboarders and snowmobile enthusiasts might dislike me for saying this, but I’m hoping for very little or no snow this winter.

It’s not that I don’t like snow…as long as I don’t have to drive in it. I think it gives everything a fresh, clean look (especially when it covers the dog poop I failed to pick up in the yard), and I’m particularly fond of the powdery kind of snow that sparkles in the light.

No, the problem with snow is my driveway (a.k.a. the asphalt menace from Hell). It has fought against and defeated even the bravest of souls who have dared to attempt to plow it throughout the years. And as a result, I now have no one to remove any snow that will defy my threats and still land on it this winter.

At least not for a price I can afford.

This driveway has been a curse since day one, mainly because the town wouldn’t grant a permit for the driveway that already existed on the property when my husband and I purchased it. Why not? Because that driveway exited into the exact spot in a cul-de-sac where the town piled up the mountains of snow its road crews plowed every winter. 

After much debate, the town finally did approve a new location for our driveway...six acres away on the most overgrown, isolated part of the property. Clearing that area was the equivalent of clearing the Forest Primeval.

By the time the new driveway was completed and actually reached the site of our future house, it was over 220 feet long and had so many curves in it due to all of the boulders it had to avoid along the way, even a snake would break its back trying to follow it. 

And to this day, people still mistake my driveway for a road.

But despite my careful placement of fluorescent driveway stakes each winter, nearly every plow driver I’ve hired has managed to wipe out most of them, knocking them down as if they were bowling pins. By now, I've purchased so many stakes, I figure I probably own stock in at least two of the companies that manufacture them...and I still have fiberglass splinters embedded in my skin to prove it.

Even though I always made certain to clearly mark where the asphalt area in front of the garage ended and my front lawn began, those stakes also promptly were plowed right down, as if they were invisible. Then the trucks plowed right across my lawn and scraped it up into a giant jelly-roll that took until July to fully melt.

The sides of my driveway, however, always have been the biggest problem because they contain an assortment of ravines and ditches that have caused damage to at least three trucks. One hit a tree, one ran over the remnants of an old stone-wall and tore off some major part underneath his truck, and another dented a front rim when it struck one of the culvert walls.

As a result, the first two plow guys I hired said, “Never again!” and quit. The third one stuck around, but said he would have to charge me by the inch for each storm. Up to six inches was $60. From six inches to a foot was $80. Anything over a foot was $100. And a blizzard was a flat $120.

So during each snowstorm, I’d be outside with my ruler every hour, measuring the inches and praying the snow would stop before it reached the next price level. I was a wreck, because even a mere quarter of an inch could force to me to cough up an extra $20.

Finally, an angel of mercy came to my rescue in the form of a guy named Chris, who read about my plight on Facebook and messaged me. He said he enjoyed helping people and would be more than happy to plow my driveway for $30 per storm, no matter how deep the snow was.  He added, “And if you don’t have the money right away, don’t worry about it.”

I couldn’t believe my good fortune. But I was smart enough not to get too excited, mainly  because I knew from experience that once the poor guy took a look at my driveway in person, he’d either break all speed records getting as far away from it as possible, or he would increase his price by about $85.

But Chris was amazing. The driveway didn’t seem to faze him at all. He plowed it in record time, and with everything – his truck, my lawn, his essential body parts – all still perfectly intact. One time, when he noticed how icy my driveway was underneath the snow, he returned with a truckload of sand, free of charge. “I didn’t want you to slip and fall while walking out to get your mail,” he said.

I had to pinch myself to make certain I wasn't dreaming.

But what really made me want to canonize Chris was one brutal winter when he was hospitalized with Covid. After several days he, still weak and tired, finally was discharged late one afternoon. The moment he got home, he jumped into his truck and headed right over to plow my driveway because it had snowed the day before and he was afraid I’d be trapped in my house.

Unfortunately, Covid eventually took its toll on Chris’ health, and he ended up with chronic lung and breathing problems and had to give up plowing.

So last winter I became plow-less. My friend’s husband was kind enough to offer to come over to plow for me, but after he knocked down a small pine tree and got a big scratch on the top of his truck from a low-hanging, snow-weighted branch, he said he feared for his life and wouldn’t be returning.

I wasn’t surprised.

Twice last winter, out of sheer desperation, I, using only a shovel, tackled the driveway myself. It took me about six hours…and half a bottle of Tylenol. The huge snowbank at the street end of the driveway – the snowbank that came up to my waist and contained chunks of ice the size of basketballs – nearly led to my premature demise. At one point, I became so exhausted and desperate while struggling to clear it, when I saw a plow truck approaching from a distance, I draped my body over the top of the banking, hoping the guy would stop to see if I was alive, and then take pity on me.

Instead, he almost ran over me.

“Sure,” I muttered, sitting up and glaring at the truck's tail-lights as the vehicle drove out of sight. “I’ll bet if I were some 20-something hot chick wearing only boots, a hat and a fur bikini, he would have stopped to help me!”

Instead, the guy probably was thinking, “That old lady hasn’t got long for this world anyway, so why bother?”

Alas, now that winter soon will be rearing its fiendish little head once again, I’m feeling panicky. I can’t find anyone even remotely close to my price range (no more than $40 per storm) to tackle my driveway. And I sincerely doubt the first snowstorm of the season is going to say, “Oh, poor Sally! She has no one to plow her out. So I'll be merciful and won’t allow even one flake of snow to land on her property.”  

MY DRIVEWAY
I’m also concerned that if I attempt to shovel the driveway myself again this winter, I’ll end up becoming a missing person until the spring thaw reveals my well-preserved frozen body lying underneath all of the snow.

There’s one other thing I might try first, however, out of sheer desperation… hire someone to exorcize my driveway.

That is, if the exorcist charges less than $40.


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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, October 28, 2025

WHEN IT COMES TO CHOOSING CAREERS THAT EARN VERY LITTLE MONEY, I'M A REAL PRO!

 

They say if you choose a career you really enjoy, then it never will seem like work or a job.

Well, when I decided to become a writer I discovered this was true – it’s never seemed like a job or real work to me…mainly because it’s barely earned me any money.

My first job as a writer, a correspondent for a weekly newspaper, earned me 25 cents per column inch. So after my articles were printed, I would whip out my trusty ruler and carefully measure each one. In a good week, I could earn about $15.

I quickly learned not to appreciate people who spoke in abbreviated terms. I wanted everyone I interviewed to ramble on endlessly, spewing out words like a slot-machine spitting out jackpot coins.

There were too many times, however, when I spent more for gas to drive to an interview than I earned for the story itself. Take, for example, the night I was assigned to interview the newly-installed president of a local women’s club.

When I arrived at the specified time and location, the members were just sitting down to dine on a pot-luck supper. I was informed that after they ate, they then would conduct the business portion of the meeting. But in the meantime, they graciously added, I was welcome to join them for supper, which I appreciated.

Nearly an hour later, after the members had finished eating and were exchanging recipes for the casseroles, salads and desserts each had brought to the pot-luck, I figured I’d finally be able to interview the new president…only to discover the official installation hadn’t even taken place yet…and was about to begin.

So I had to wait until the new president actually was sworn in as the new president.

By the time I sat through the lengthy installation of officers and a variety of speeches, it was close to 9 PM, yet the outgoing president still was onstage,  thanking everyone from her ancient ancestors to her current mail carrier.

But instead of being discouraged because I was getting paid only by the inch and not by the hour, I was encouraged. These women were talkers, and talkers meant a lot of words…which translated into a lot of inches.

When I finally was able to interview the new president, however, the conversation went something like this:

ME:  “So, as the new president, what are your plans for the club in the upcoming year?”

HER:  “Oh, I have quite a few major changes in mind, but I’m not prepared to discuss them yet.”

ME:  “Are you pleased to be the new president or are you feeling a bit apprehensive right now?”

HER:  “I’m pleased.”

ME:  “What is a main goal you would like to achieve during your term?”

HER:  “To do my very best.”

The interview went progressively downhill after that. Whenever I give my dogs the command to “speak,” even they say more than that woman did.

I ended up earning a whopping $1.75 for the article. But on the bright side, I did enjoy and get the recipes for Grace Benson’s lasagna and Edna Turner’s apple cobbler.

When I later became a columnist, I was paid $25 per column, which sounded like a fortune after earning only 25 cents per inch. And I wrote eight columns per month, so that was a hefty $200.

And after only 20 more years of writing those columns week after week, I finally received a raise and earned $35 for each one.

I did manage to write some decent-paying articles for publications like New Hampshire Magazine and Chicken Soup for the Soul, but they weren’t regular enough to make me financially self-sufficient. In fact, if I’d had to support myself solely on what I made from all of those years of writing, I’d probably be living in my car right now.

No, on second thought, I wouldn’t even have been able to afford a car.

I think it’s because, for some reason, writing isn’t considered an actual career by many people. I can’t count the number of times newspapers and other publications asked me to write for them, and when I enthusiastically responded with, “Thank you! I would love to! How much do you pay?” the response usually was, “Pay? We don’t pay.”

“Um, then what exactly is in it for me?” I’d ask.

“Exposure,” too often came the typical response.

Let me point out here that after writing for most of my life, I’ve already had more “exposure” than a convention of Playboy bunnies. What I need is money…cash, moolah, dinero, checks, even gift cards…anything that will prevent me from having to resort to reading my poetry on street corners.

Alas, in 2009, I decided to try my hand at writing books. Surely, I thought, a novel would earn a lot more money than a column. All I had to do was sit down and create about 100,000 brilliant words, find a publisher and then sit back and wait for the cash to come rolling in, especially after the book made it into the top 10 on the New York Times Best Seller list.

Sure…simple.

It took me over two years of writing, rewriting and constant overthinking before I finally finished my first book. And then I spent another year receiving rejection letters from agents who were hoping to represent someone like Oprah Winfrey or Meryl Streep, not some unknown writer from small-town New Hampshire. I guess I really couldn’t blame them. Heck, why settle for crumbs when they could have caviar?

Frustrated, I decided to self-publish. I figured I had nothing to lose, other than my sanity. Amazon was offering free publishing, along with royalties based on a percentage of the profits from the number of books sold. That sounded good to me.

So I researched self-publishing and even joined a few writing groups online that dealt specifically with the subject.

As I read their advice, however, I rolled my eyes so much, I was afraid my eyeballs were going to fall out and land on my keyboard.

“An attention-grabbing book cover is essential,” the published writers said. “You have to make sure it attracts readers. So plan to spend at least $2,000 to $3,000 on a professionally designed one. It will be worth every penny in the long run.”

“And you definitely need an experienced editor to correct all of your errors, like plot holes and inconsistencies,” they added. “So set aside a minimum of $3,000 or more for editing.”

“Also, don’t forget to hire the best narrators for the audio version of your book,” another advised. “I sell more audio books than both the paperbacks and e-books combined. However, if you have a narrator with an annoying or robot-like voice, that can be a death sentence for your novel.”

“But the biggest part of your budget should be spent on promoting your book,” the majority of them emphasized. “You are competing with millions of other writers, so how do you expect to be noticed? You have to aggressively advertise and promote your work or no one will even know it exists.”

Their advice made good sense, I thought.

But as someone who hadn’t even earned enough to classify it as poverty-level income from my writing over the years, my "budget" had a grand total of only about $50 to spend on my book.

So I decided to try to create my own book cover, even though I had no idea how to go about it. I drove around with my camera and snapped scenic photos. I sketched pictures or painted them. I downloaded free fonts for fancy lettering. I even found several photographers who said I could use their work, royalty free, for merely an acknowledgement in my book’s credits.

And then I actually did design all of my own book covers – except for the very first one, There’s a Tick in my Underwear!  I splurged $35 for a cover creator from Smashwords to design that one because I wasn't satisfied with the cover I created. I mean, hanging a pair of granny panties on a tree limb and snapping a photo of them flapping in the breeze might have seemed like a great idea for a cover at the time, but the end result proved to me it definitely wasn't. So once I paid for the professional cover (well, maybe semi-professional), I was able to use it as a guideline afterwards for creating the rest of my covers. I also did my own editing on my manuscripts and then would ask a couple of my friends to read them and be brutally honest…which they were. 

As I wrote more and more books, I learned that the best way to be “found” was to offer a few of the books at no cost…and then hope the readers would be impressed enough to actually pay to read more of them.

I also learned that when you offer a book free of charge, readers really don’t care much about what the cover looks like. Free is free, after all. The same with sequels. If the readers enjoy the first book and develop an attachment to the characters, then they’ll want to read the sequel, even if the cover looks as if someone drew it an hour after undergoing cataract surgery.

Since 2012, I’ve written and self-published a total of 12 books, two of which have been in the top 20 in their respective categories for all 13 years. My books have been purchased and/or downloaded (including the free ones) over 250,000 times.

Sounds pretty impressive, right?

A GIFT FROM ONE OF MY FRIENDS

Wrong. Depending on the price of the book, Amazon pays me a royalty of anywhere from a mere three cents to a “huge” $1.75. So the way I figure it, I would have to sell about three million books a year just to earn the minimum wage.

And forget about creating audio versions of my books. I tried the free virtual-voice audiobook  conversion Amazon offers and the voice not only sounded robotic, for some reason it also decided to read all of the punctuation out loud along with the dialogue, so it sounded like this:

“Open quotes, Oh, darling, exclamation point! Of course, comma, I will move to Boston with you! Exclamation point, closed quotes.”

Not exactly oozing with romance.

I did price professional narrators for audio books, but quickly nixed that idea. The only one I could even come close to affording was an 86-year-old retired disc-jockey with an equally ancient reel-to-reel tape recorder. When I told him my book's narrator was a young female, he said he could talk in a high-pitched voice if I'd like.

But I’ll never stop writing, at least not by choice. It’s in my blood and always will remain my chosen career, even if it forces me to eat rice and assorted chicken parts six days a week. And I’ll never give up hoping that some big film-producer might read one of my free books someday and offer me a six-figure contract for the movie rights to it.

Don’t laugh! Exclamation point. An old woman still can dream, can’t she? Question mark.

In the meantime, I’m seriously considering changing my pen name to Oprah Winfrey…or maybe even Taylor Swift.


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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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