The first step is to penetrate the clouds of deceit and distortion and learn the truth about the world,
then to organize and act to change it. That's never been impossible and never been easy. ~Noam Chomsky

Friday, July 29, 2011

Irrelevant

There's all this...stuff...going on in our home right now. Good and bad stuff. Complicated twisty turny stuff.

In the midst of it all I received my last SH.APE magazine.
Several years ago, in an epic poor decision making moment, J and I agreed to buy a subscription from this dear teenage door to door salesman. J is a huge sucker for these young salesmen. Which I find sweet and endearing. It's a recipe for neither of us being able to say no.

Anyway, we agreed to this subscription, it was super cheap, and ever since then we've had a lovely stock of SH.APE magazines sitting next to our toilet.

So yesterday I was looking at my last magazine and the cover was hidden by a big announcement stating "THIS IS YOUR LAST CHANCE TO RENEW & SAVE BEFORE SERVICE INTERRUPTION." Naturally I took this as a moment to stop and quite seriously consider whether or not I need to renew.

Flipping through the magazine I realized that there was not one headline, not one article, not even one word that I found relevant to my life right now. Honestly who reads this stuff?

"Banish the Breakup Blues: Put down the ice cream and soothe your soul the healthy way." Sure. Like anyone suffering through a breakup is going to want to read SH.APE magazine or listen to its advice.

"Stilleto Survival Guide." I didn't think anyone outside of Se.x and the City actually wore those.

"415 calories burned while cutting your lawn with a HAND-POWERED mower." What is a hand-powered mower?? There must be better and more technologically relevant ways to burn 415 calories!

"Move over surfing, stand-up paddling is taking over." Sure. I'll get right on that.

My favorite section: Shape Your Life Women in Action. A guide for Shaking things up. Sounded promising. But these are the categories of advice: "unleash a new you", "bust an entertainment rut", and "become miss popularity." That's exactly what I need: a total makeover, the stress of hosting huge parties at my house, and the pressure of trying to be the most popular woman in the room.

A.udrina P.atridge was the featured interviewee. She is a reality tv star. She wants us to know that she only washes her hair twice each week but it still looks shiny and perfect, she "plays" instead of working out, and when she really wants to splurge she eats frozen yogurt with lots of fruit....

Here are some other topics covered in this issue: how to get a better fake glow, lip stain that will last 8 hours, how to squeeze in a workout but not a shower, and how to assess whether or not your dog is overweight.

The verdict? Not renewing the subscription. And keeping SH.APE as a bathroom-only read. ;)

~A

5 comments:

  1. I am sorry that you are going through complicated, twisty, turny stuff.

    But i am NOT sorry that you are not renewing that subscription. Not one little bit. Spend the money that you saved on ice cream and chocolate :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. I know how you squeeze in a workout and don't take a shower. You workout. Then you don't take a shower.

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  3. Hand powered motor= lawn tractor with no beverage holder. Must keep hand on beer at all times.

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  4. Too funny our neighbor shares all of his magazine subscriptions with us (he too was suckered by a girl salesperson). His last SH.APE just came today too. :) I was thinking the same thing-not going to miss this one.

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  5. I used to be a big magazine person, but not so much anymore--not really sure when that changed but it sure did. Totally hear ya on this one. :-)

    ReplyDelete

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