Tag Archives: body image

The Fourteen Dollar Martini Murder, Stress in Paradise

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The Fourteen Dollar Martini Murder, Stress in Paradise

Episode One: Revolution on the Beach

Dateline: Cabo San Lucas Hilton Resort International Branch Headquarters.
This place is what heaven would be like if you could get in using Hilton Points. There is one small problem in paradise, though. I didn’t think the issue would come to this, but these people are relentless and used to getting what they want.

Note: I am grateful not to be an only child, or the first child. When you grow up with siblings, you know you don’t get your way all the time. Just ask my little brother.

To kick off the New Year in proper psychologist fashion, I’d planned to write a series on the absolutelyhardest psychological problem for all us. Something lite on how to be a happy human in every way, all the time–just pay shipping and handling. But then,
everything went all to heck here at the resort. And, well, total happiness will
have to wait.

Set-up:  Ultimate Supreme Superlative Fabulous Luxury…resort on the beach of the Sea of Cortez. (Yes, I’ve been watching Toddlers a.nd Tierras. It’s a call for help.)…Glorious Spanish style hotel, infinity pools, palm trees, white uniformed waiters and helpers to meet every need of guests stretched out on gel memory foam chaise lounges, each with several tan and white beach towels (warmed at night in December). There are swim up bars, spa stations, four restaurants, and even whales on the horizon.

Perfect, right? Well, maybe, until the humans who’d migrated from the north
noticed one teeny tiny flaw in the perfect hotel on the perfect beach. This wee
fact chaffs like hot sand too high up in the bathing suit.

To comprehend the seriousness of the Chaise Lounge War, we are talking combatants with unlimited funds. I am likely the only woman here who bought her bathing suit ‘cover-all’ (I thought the name‘cover all’ served my purpose perfectly.) at Walmart. The man one chaise over just told someone casually: “My son only wanted to go to SMU or Duke, so heonly applied to those two. He was accepted at both. SMU offered him a full four-year scholarship, but then after touring both campuses, he decided he liked the Duke camps a tiny bit better. So that’s where he went and it cost me $240,000.”

Yeah, I know. Martians, right? I expected him to say, “But then after touring both campuses, he told me he liked Duke a tiny bit better, and I asked him if he wanted to live.”

So, different folks. I don’t think Hilton points are the main currency here.

When we arrived before Christmas the hotel was not completely full and the chaise lounge issue was but a mere fleeting shadow over paradise. But as the week closed in on New Year’s, the chaise lounge dilemma rumbled and grew, sucking up more and more time and attention. And, yes, fear. Now the chaise lounge issue has careened completely off the page.

There’s talk of stun guns.

Next: Episode Two. The Wealthy Strike Back at Unfair Pool Regulations!

 

 

Stress Holiday Encore: Make Money Off Your Body Scans!

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ENCORE POST:

Dateline:  (Encore) Willie’s Place, Carl’s Corner, Texas. Whole bunch of people sang here.

Setup:  I’m in hiding.  Ever since I offered my Body Scan for public consumption…the reporters, the cameras…Geraldo…

Remember John Lennon’s line, “Life is what happens when you’re making other plans?”

What a chunk of truth.  There I was, in a pretty normal life, planning more normal life….when my world was turned upside down.  You guessed it.  My Body Scan distribution company …BS,Inc… has been successful beyond my wildest dreams.

Note: What do financial success and fame have to do with the goal of this program?  Which, in case you’ve forgotten, is for each of us professed emotional weenies…to muddle toward…just a wee bit toward…improved emotional functioning. Or, simply…to not have every second of every minute of every hour of every day….decided by our emotions.  To do more in our lives than run around wasting time, spending money, falling for fad diets, worrying what other people think…comparing ourselves, our kids, our house, our car, our education, our butt size, our creative talents….

Thus, the story of my Body Scan business (BS. Inc.), is but one example of the seduction of the Pseudo Self (see previous on doughnuts and doughnut holes), one more attempt to manage anxiety by propping up my image to the world.  If you’d rather go the consumer route, the commercials during one half hour (okay, an hour and a half) of Prison Wives last night, told me a Dodge Ram means I’m confident, staying at a Holiday Inn means I can “be myself”, buying your wife diamonds or an expensive car shows you really think she’s grand… (Using money from the family budget…but, hey, it’s the thought.  The thought in this case is, “See, I love you so much I didn’t consider your input when spending this huge amount of money…”)

One way to break the hold “image making” has on us is to laugh at ourselves.  Again, if you don’t believe you have any reason to laugh because you are completley emotinally put together….well, Dr. Laura can still be found on the radio.

Back to the real BS, Inc. and whining about the demands of success.  Those of you…wiser in the world than I…who lacks even one cell of entrepreneurial expertise…probably spotted my first error in announcing my Body Scan availability. Right. Christmas.  Biggest shopping season of the year.  How could I foretell the thousands rush orders?  So many years of training in human behavior.  And, yet I hadn’t predicted the clamor when people recognized my Body Scan products as the perfect present for relatives, officemates, and military serving overseas.

And as is true with lottery winners, I found myself battling an onslaught of business opportunities.

First came the television cable channels in a bidding war for my reality show.  “Body Scans Around the World” which had great promise, but is now on hold due to artistic differences…The producer is insisting on a variety of what she calls “outfits” for the various airport venues…while I think to upgrade from black jeans and polo shirts would be a tragic error.

Next, of course, here came Hollywood.  Could I write a screenplay?  Who did I think should play me in the film?  Which ended up in another artistic dispute.  I know they think Julia Roberts is perfect, and, probably that’s true if you just go for face and body.  But, we’re talking scrutiny by Homeland Security and, right away, it’s going to be glaringly obvious that I am not as tall as Julia Roberts.  My suggestion was Heather Locklear.  The production will have to wait until some sort of Julia Roberts-Heather Locklear compromise actress can be found.

Where Hollywood goes, can Heff be far behind?  Yes, next came the plea for my Body Scan Playboy centerfold which is an obvious choice when you think about it. That offer is also on hold as I am gripped trying to decide if I can bear to have my family see my BS exposed.

To make some sense of my BS bonanza, I’ve decided the best way to go is through selling franchises.  I simply cannot keep up with the BS demand around the world on my own.  If you see the potential in your section of the world, send me your credit card number.  Franchise are, of course, FREE…just pay shipping and handling, and, if you call in the next 24 hours, you can try BS RISK FREE…all you have to do is check the box where you are a member of BS International and will have fifteen dollars deducted from your credit card account for as long as we both shall live. 

And, you know how they say…. “The sky’s the limit!”

Well, that’s not true for BS, Inc.  I’ve received a down payment and a pint of blood from a man in Quartzite, Arizona, who, thinking out of the box…well outside the trailer….He recognized my Body Scan as proof of alien inhabitation of Earth.  The silvery hue. Of course!  He wants my BS to make a personal appearance at his grand opening, but I’m afraid coverage in Quartzite will leave me over-exposed.

Stress.Body Scans Gone Wild!

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Dateline: North Austin Medical Center. Cough and Wheeze Section.

As an effort to lend a bit of joy to the Season while I attempt to return to the land of the breathing, I’m running a series from last year explaining how to make extra money.

As you can imagine, if you read part one of the Body Scan manual, I am buried in demand for my products.  At long last, I’m going to be rich.  People will notice me.  No one will cross me. I will have achieved the American Dream.

What’s that you say?  The American Dream is more than buying expensive stuff?  Oh, no…..You’re saying those of us not so steady in the emotional maturity department would try to BUY our way out of anxiety?  Ridiculous.  What’da ya think?  Black or tan leather in the BMW?

In Progress….Turn Body Scans into Fortunes!

Those Stress Relief Advice Givers are Just Making Stuff Up

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Stress. Some of These Advice Givers are Just Making Stuff Up

Dateline: Gold’s Gym International Branch Office.  A couple of Texas basketball players train here in the summer. Makes the treadmill more fun.

Stress Relief Advice for the Holiday Season

How to steam a turkey in a mop bucket, how to make a wreath out of old toothbrushes, how to bake cookies shaped like antlers using sun power, how to spice up your cocoa with plants from your backyard…and on and on.  

Are you ready for the feature writers to pull out those well-worn ‘seasonal’ features?  How many times do we all have to stand around in the kitchen on Thanksgiving Day and wring our hands trading salmonella rumors?

To honor the relentless nonsensical suggestions we endure this time of year, I’m sharing two bits of bizarre advice to represent the group.

 Stress and Fat Free Turkey

Want to enjoy turkey on Thanksgiving, but you are afraid of the fat? (Okay, let’s be honest here. If you are tackling some weight issue or just living your life beating yourself up…if your first concern is the fat in turkey??…Just saying.) This tip is courtesy of one of the doctor shows. The recommendation: “If you want to enjoy turkey on the Big Day but don’t want the fat, substitute that tasty turkey breast and gravy, that delicious turkey leg… with a fat free (read: so dry you could use it as a sponge) ground turkey CUPCAKE. The delusional doctor actually added, “Not only is a turkey cupcake low in fat, it’s fun to eat!”

Doggie Stress at the Turkey Table 

We don’t want to leave out the pet on this family holiday. This chunk of news is taken from some guy on the Animal Channel. “Is your pet a problem at the dinner table? Does your dog beg for a taste of that lucious turkey dinner the people are enjoying?”

Now, right away, the fact this guy can ask such questions should warn you to plug your ears with hot tar. Lucky for us dog owners, he answers his own questions.  He says, (You should probably sit down for this one.) “While it may seem like what your dog wants is a bit of food, all he really wants is your attention.” (I know. I almost choked I was laughing so hard.)

The dog man continues: “When your dog begs at Thanksgiving Dinner, just slip your hand under the table and give him a pat on the head.”

Right. And bring back a bloody stub. A guest tearing out of the house for the emergency room during Thanksgiving Dinner is such a downer. It’s a downer for the foolishly injured person, too, because the wait will be long at the hospital. Lots of people ‘full of in a holiday spirit’ who forgot to use a potholder taking the turkey out of the oven. Those folks often sport broken toes and charred shins. Then there are the domestic violence cases. Men with turkey legs wedged sideways in their mouths and women who lost the sweet potates and marshmellows food fight.On Thanksgiving day you have to wait forever to see a doctor….I mean, that’s what I’ve heard.

Coming:  Recipe Exclusive!  Famous Triple Stuffed Turkey

 

 

 

 

Adventures in the Phone Trees, Part 2, Super Stress

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Dateline: Seventh Rung of the Phone Tree. I can see Saturn from here.

To comprehend this portion of Customer Service Phone Torture, first catch up with Part One.

Hour Two

Now I’m bumped up to Level Two since my request is apparently too complicated for the first ring of hell. Level Two Customer Service Guy thanks me for choosing Dell and asks me to give him all my information again.  He assures me he will solve the problem.  Sigh of relief.

Someone’s going to help me.  But, oh. Nay, nay! Because what Bubble Voice Lady is really saying is:

“Hey, don’t you get it? You are the one causing us a problem. We do not hire people anymore…that’s a sham…not to mention expensive. You have landed in our Customer Service Slave Section, that is, employees who have chronic lateness issues and bad breath. What’s really going to happen here is, I am going to torture you until you quit this nonsense and hang up. We’d prefer that you spend your money with this company without us even having to hear about it.  Just check the boxes and put
in your credit card number.  Wouldn’t we all be happier if you’d just hang up and do the ordering for us?  If you continue to persist, you will be put on the special terminal hold we’ve set up for customers like you– which is a message suggesting you go online and not bother us. This will be rotated with my voice every two minutes reminding you how important your call is to this company!”

A new voice picks up the call. I’m excited. The customer service guy says, “Thank you for calling Dell. Unrli whu ssoommoo. Ursache waser.”

I have no idea what this guy means because now I’m in India.  I don’t blame the “customer service” guy. He’s working to make a little money in a poor country and he’s brave to take on the task of trying to be understood. I do blame Dell for not caring
enough about customer service to hire people for whom English is a first
language.  The call from India drops off.

Right. Start all over with Bubble Voice Lady. “Thank you for calling Dell!  Please choose…”

After five trips to India and five times giving my address, service code, order number and educational history…in my broken Indian-English I tell the guy that the batteries Dell sent me (to replace those that were stolen) arrived yesterday and they are the wrong batteries for my computer.  He asked if I purchased the batteries on line.

What he’s really saying is: “Hey, if you bought these on line, then you, dear valued customer, is the one at fault. Haha. Gotcha. No more time for you!”

I explain that, no, I purposely bought them on the phone because I wanted to be very sure the correct batteries were sent—since the last time I ordered these batteries it took Dell three shipments before I was sent the correct batteries.  That I had ordered
on the day my luggage was stolen because I needed them as soon as possible.
They are the wrong batteries. What follows is thirty minutes of repeating what
I told my Indian friends.

I am kicked up to Level Three. I think Foreign Legion Customer Service Guy hit the panic button on his keyboard.

I give my information again to Level Three Customer Service Guy (LTCSG). This is the seventh time I have given this information to citizens whose native language is not English. The Level Three customer service guy puts me on hold while he checks part numbers, computer service tag numbers, and blood type.  He returns to the call.

Here is where the conversation really slips off the page.

I am sitting at my computer. I am holding one of the wrong batteries in my hand. Foreign Legion Level Three Customer Service Guy says:  “Ma’am the batteries you received are the correct batteries for your computer.”

Did I mention I was holding one of the wrong batteries in my hand?  That it did not look like, nor was it configured like the battery that came with the computer or batteries I’ve bought since. I convey this to Level Two Customer Service Guy.  He repeats his assurance that I am holding the correct battery.

I say again that I have the battery in my hand and it doesn’t fit the computer. You can see that from just a look.  It’s not the battery for the computer.

LTCSG repeats his claim and asks me if I will open the package the battery came in and take a look at it.  Did I mention…

Part 3…Level Four…

Chameleon. Stress Management Through Changing Colors

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Chameleon, Blending with Environment to Calm Anxiety
Dateline: Chili’s International Branch Office

The Woman Who Didn’t Know If She Liked French Fries went on– from our midnight burgers during my second year of college—to a lifetime of confusion and efforts to find her ‘self’ through other people. And though I tried to mold her myself that fateful night, the WWDKILFF continued to choose only men to form her ‘self’ against. Remember lack of ‘self’ is demonstrated by the inability to define oneself (her), and the inability to leave other people alone and running their own lives (me).

Think of the WWDKILFF as hot wax and men as molds at the ready.

The man she was leaving that fateful night she met at a country club party. He was 17 years older than her, wealthy, worldly, and dashing. WWDKILFF, uncomfortable at the university and not knowing what she wanted to study, became a country club wife. She traded generic beer for martinis and Manhattans, jeans for cocktail dresses, the casual look of poor students for regular visits to the manicurist, the personal trainer, the dermatologist, hair stylist, and personal shopper.

After the cocktail circuit, WWDKILFF returned to college where she met a charismatic protestor who headed up an organization opposing government military expenditures. She quit college again and traded her cocktail ways for old jeans, saggy T-shirts, vegetarianism, and pot. Now vehemently anti-materialistic, she cut ties with her middle-class family. The next time I heard from her she was standing in line at the free clinic in Houston to receive no-cost pills to treat gonorrhea.

Next she met a cowboy. Since I showed horses, she called thinking I’d be delighted with the news that she was learning to ride and rope. She traded her protestor ways for boots, and saddles, expensive beer, T-bone steaks, and thrill rides.

At our tenth high school reunion I learned that the WWDKILFF was now married to a man who sold life insurance and owned his own company. She’d traded her cowboy ways to take care of a big house in the suburbs, two kids, a maid, and twice weekly visits to her psychiatrist.

Couple Stress, the “Woman Who Didn’t Know If She Liked French Fries”

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Fusion and the “Woman Who Didn’t Know If She Liked French Fries Incident”

Dateline:  Bergstrom Interantional Airport, which is deep in the forests of northeast part of Germany or in south Austin.

Fusion is the emotional process that occurs when the way one person feels is automatically absorbed by another person. Every close relationship includes a certain amount of adaptation to calm the other, the question is, to what degree?  It’s only with too much fusion that we get into trouble.

For example:  the family member who avoids going home for Christmas because he or she feels like a different person (less confident) when around family. The usual rationalization is to claim nothing in common or to have a list of past injustices.)

The horse I had once who wouldn’t eat at horseshows unless his buddy in the next stall at home came along with him on the road. (Fusion can get expensive.)

The cheerleader’s mother who tried to murder the mother of one of her daughter’s rivals so that the girl would be too upset to be competitive.

The wife who longed to tour Italy but stopped bringing it up after a few years to avoid the anxiety in her that was stirred up by her husband’s anxiety at the thought of shaking up the routine.

The student who can only perform well when ‘liked’ by the teacher.

A loved spouse who only feels safe when his or her partner is happy.

and…

The Woman Who Didn’t Know if She Liked French Fries:

A college roommate, we’ll call her K, met an wealthy older man who promised her a new life.  Not all that happy with the life she had, she married him. K gathered up her country-raised self and welcomed the makeover into an upscale wife.  Three years later the new look wasn’t worth putting up with the all the other women her husband provided with new lives.  The night of their last big fight, K and I met at midnight at a 24 hour café.  I ordered the burger and fries, but K told the waiter she needed more time.

K picked up the menu and stared.  “I don’t know what to order,” she said.

“Burgers and fries are good here,” I said.

“That’s the problem,” K said. “Dave thinks I should lose weight, so I always order what I know he thinks I should eat. I don’t remember if I like French fries or not.”

The emotional process of calming self by calming the anxious other has many names and faces. The term co-dependent, no longer in vogue since insurance won’t pay for it anymore, was defined as calming self when next to an anxious other by ‘helping’ that person. The co-dependent is the person who lies for the addict, supplies money, and sometimes takes on responsibility for locating the ‘drug of choice’ for them.  In this situation the addict is very clear about what will calm them down—for the moment. He or she is good at promising that if the other doesn’t do what he or she commands worse consequences are to come.

The addict turns responsibility for his or her life over to the other. The addict learns to be very good at convincing others to listen to his or her claims about life and to ignore their own beliefs.  Through this process, a person can end up “living” another person’s life.  Much like the woman who didn’t know if she liked french fries.

Next: Anxiety and Potatoes Part Two, the “Woman Who Used Two Potato Peelers at Once” Incident.