Keep Calm and Carry On fatigue

I dig this motto and poster. I really do. Actually, I sort of love it, the same way I love Westminster Abbey, fascinators, and British sangfroid.

But.

It's been co-opted by every social media DIY lad or lass who fancies themselves clever. Pinterest is lousy with eye-rollingly-cute variations on the original theme: Keep calm and craft on. Keep calm and call your mom. Keep calm and have a cupcake. Keep calm and go back to December (yes, there is a whole line for Taylor Swift fans). I can almost get behind "Keep calm and STFU." Almost.

Do most people even know (or care) that this was originally created by the British government to keep up morale during World War II? I suspect most people think a graphic designer banged it out to sell on etsy. Stop decorating your Crate & Barreled-out entryway and breakfast nook with knockoffs that speak to your hobbies and sensibilities. Keep the ubiquitous original if you must (I know you paid a pretty penny for that silicone iPhone case) but carry the rest of these designer imposters straight to the recycling bin, where their recycled arses belong.

(photo: wikipedia.com)

Truck nuts

An image is worth a thousand words. A thousand cuss words, that is. The only consolation about staring at these ballsacs while stuck in traffic is getting to see the sac of shit driving the monster truck when you finally pass him and leave his bumper nuts in the dust.

Dude is seriously compensating. Like John Bobbit compensating.

Maybe I’m picking on low-hanging fruit here but I believe the person who hangs testicles from his trailer hitch is a massive tool with a tiny dick. That’s the only reason I can imagine showcasing such nutty behavior.

I’m confident in saying that the testes are the most precious of boy parts, the Achilles Heel of the groin region. A well-placed soccer ball or knee can fell a man and turn him temporarily into a helium-sucking castrato. So why in the name of Cisco Adler’s balls would you leave these swaying in the wind? You're just inviting any civilized person to rear end yo’ ass and crack those nuts. Kick these plastic nads to the curb before you get punched in your actual hairy cherries.

(photo: 67-72chevytrucks.com) 

Family car stickers

Wow, you’re a family? Get out! I would never have guessed that you have a full house by the minivan you’re driving.

The decal equivalent of a “Life Is Good” t-shirt or Vera Bradley backpack, customized family stickers are just another way to crow about your awesome functional family. Honestly, wouldn’t a holiday photo with matching red sweaters do the trick?

Maybe it’s just that my ovaries have gone to seed, but this 2.0 version of a Baby on Board sign isn’t going to engender warm, fuzzy feelings in me. Rather, this smug stick figure art makes me want to stick something else to this family, namely a bumper sticker over your two-dimensional family that reads GANG OF BORE.

(photo: familystickers.com)

Autocorrect

In this age of hustle bustle, packed Outlook schedules, fast-talkers, and even faster walkers, it's nice to have technology clean up after us. 

However.

Autocorrect is a handy tool, sure, particularly if you’re illiterate or have sausages for fingers. But as a persnickety gal in a hurry, I don't fancy my phone's inner editor redlining and overruling my words in the most supercilious manner, even when I spell them correctly. When I text about my cat Frida, she becomes Friday. Higgs boson defaulted to Hugs Bosom,which would be an AWESOME porn or drag name but not quite what I was going for when trying to rock a particle physics confab. I wished a dashing young man luck on a potential job and his reply? "From your lipids to God's ears."

Not exactly what he was going for, methinks, although my triglycerides are pretty fucking awesome.

While trying to be helpful, this presumptuous hit, I mean, git is putting words in my mouth, or at least on my screen. If I wanted to be second-guessed and condescended to, I'd ring up my ex-boyfriend. He was a champion speller of jackassian proportions and he had a Prius, I mean, penis.


(photo: damnyouautocorrect.com)

Long toenails

Riddle me this, ladyhawke:

Are you trying to pick up small rodents during flight?

Because that’s the only reason I can imagine that you’re clicking along with those talons looping over your flip-flops like a grounded raptor.

Isn’t there a point where life and practicality might suggest that you whittle those can-openers off? Like, for instance, when putting on a closed-toe shoe? Or your basic bipedal walking?

Clip, saw, file, chew, and otherwise hack those claws off or I’m going to have to sic an actual bird of prey on your ungroomed hooves. Their beaks can clip those nails in no time.

(photo: longtoenails.org)

Platform shoes

To know me is to know I love shoes.

I have somewhere in the neighborhood of 75 pairs, stored in clear boxes with laminated photos of them taped to their outside. I love, love, love them. I want to hug them and pet them and call them my own.

Most of all, I like to wear them. I love how long and sinuous my gams become when I slip into a stiletto, or how badass I feel when I zip up a pair of calf-hugging sky-high leather boots. Shoes can make me feel like a Hitchcock heroine, a dominatrix, or a straight-up lady. I’m down with all of that.

What I’m not down with is hobbling around like a 19^th-century Chinese woman with bound feet. 

Which is what platform shoes turn women into. I don’t care if you’re Beyoncé, Dita Von Teese, an elfin Olson Twin, or the celebutard du jour, there’s no way you can walk easily, let along comfortably or safely, in these mobile diases. When I slip into a spendy designer platform pump or a cheap hooker shoe, I might as well be toiling away inside a Pearl S. Buck novel, what with my crippled feet. They turn your dogs into horse's hooves.

And why is it so important to be six foot four? I have a hard enough time dating. I don’t need to elevate out prospective men with my glamazonian ways. Kick off these torture devices and kick them to the curb before you become an actual fashion victim.

(photo: compulsivestyle.com)

Skin tags

I accept that that hard living, the environment, the passing of years, and, in my case, a certain lack of balance, can take its toll on the body. Sunburned skin, puffy eyes, scars, moles, a tattoo from a certain Tijuana blackout… You name it, our body is a unique constellation of oddities and quirks that make us, well, us.

I can live with that.

For the most part, anyway. When I can see a clear cause and effect, I can suck it up and bear the dairy-driven rosacea or escalator scar from a New Year’s Eve gone terribly wrong. But I can’t wrap my mind around skin tags.

These tiny growths create a flesh-colored necklace around my neck, or pop up in an armpit or under a boob. Skin tags are basically body barnacles. And I want them scraped off my hull lickety-split. I’m all for personal growth, but that doesn’t mean I want little bits and pieces of skin rubbing against pendants or chafing against an underwire. While punching doesn’t help much in this case, clipping, burning, and excising in my derm’s office will teach these outcroppings not to rear their ugly heads. Tag, you’re hit.

(photo: skintagsremove.com)

Holiday-themed clothing

We get it, Star-Spangled Dumbass, it’s the Fourth of July. With the pop-up fireworks stands, numerous picnic invitations, and my calendar, I had an inkling.

While I think a jaunty scarf or baseball cap in our nation’s colors can set off an outfit and proclaim your Independence beautifully, I take issue with clothing purchased solely for a holiday. Whether it’s an emerald-green outfit befitting a leprechaun, a Quacker Factory sweater adorned with jack-o-lanterns or Christmas trees, or a Valentine’s Day heart attack, seasonal clothing is as gauche as wearing a white gown to someone else's wedding.

And, American Idiot, tricking yourself out head to toe in red, white, and blue $5 Old Navy or Target clothing that was made by one-armed Asian toddlers isn’t the way to convey your national pride.

That’s what illegal fireworks are for, Thomas Feel-Some-Paine. That’s just common sense. 

(photo: flagclothes.com)

Passwords

Every since I was a wittle gurl, I liked security. In the form of my binkie, my mother's bedtime kiss, a sturdy deadbolt. And I thought passwords were the shit. They were currency into the cool kids' clubhouse, sometimes literally.

And then…the internet. In its infancy, I could use one password—a pet's name, some iteration of my birthdate, a word that always makes me giggle—for everything.

And then…now. With secure office servers, viruses, hackers, and just plain annoyingly efficient websites requiring frequent password resets, my mind and my secret codes are a jumble. Some are written down in various notebooks, some are trapped in my mind, hanging out on the trashheap of other lost memories like the last name of that nimrod boyfriend who always kept his gum tucked behind a molar when kissing me, and some are plopped God knows where on my laptop. 

Technology is supposed to make life easier, not remind me at every turn of how old and infirm my mind is becoming. 

macdaddy18

MacDaddy2000

TIWTPITF2012

TrueLove1

Haircut100

LakersRule86

IH8Scrabble

FUpassword

Butterfield8 

maisoui123

No, they're not vanity plates. These are my desperate attempts to find the right combination to unlock my iTunes/Facebook/Twitter/Pinterest/LinkedIn/Microsoft/GoogleYouTubeFlickr/bank/investment/online retailer account. Maybe I should just reset everything right now to Amnesiac4ever.

Don't talk to me about security questions. I'm too busy trying to remember my family's first phone number.

(art: sync-blog.com)