Showed promise. Couldn't play the game.


© 2011 Tia Creighton

I asked my grandma before she died, "Hey, Mama, you got a bucket list?"

"A what?!" she asked taking a puff off her cigarette and laughing.

"A bucket list. It's a list of things you want to do before you die. You know, kick the bucket..." I pantomimed kicking and let my voice trail off.

"Well, that's the damnedest thing I ever heard of." She paused and thought, taking a long drag on her smoke.

"A bucket list," she said. "No." She got serious and stubbed out her cigarette in her MJB coffee can full of sand. She was leaning on the rail of her back porch looking at the Army Corps of Engineers campus. The fog was coming in over the grade, and she pulled her open cardigan tight around her tiny frame.

"That would mean planning and goals and a lot of things hanging out there I didn't get to. No, kid, I don't make lists. I used to, but I stopped."

She avoided eye contact and instead kept looking at Richardson's Bay. Unless you were close to the mouth of the Golden Gate, the view from most of Sausalito's banks back then was not very beautiful. Your eyes were treated to rotting house boats, abandoned busses and rundown Quonset huts.

As I thought about her answer, I realized I had never seen my grandmother read from a list of any kind. Not an errand list, not a shopping list, not a phone list and especially not a recipe. She had it all in her head: tasks, friends, food.

"I just kept adding to them and at the end of the day, I'd look and there was always something I didn't get to. It made me feel bad. Now, if I wake up, have a smoke, get a call into Toots, make lunch for Papa, watch my soap at one and talk to you guys in the afternoon, I've had a good day."

Then she looked at me and turned aside a curl that had fallen in my eyes.

"On Sundays, I set up the altar, go to mass, water my cactus, pick some basil. That's enough. Lists are for suckers. The important things to do, you'll remember. You don't need to write them down."

© 2011 Tia Creighton

Lately, I've seen an increased number of ads for items known as "feminine hygiene products." Why don't the manufacturers just come out and say what it is they're selling instead of couching their products in this misty language?



I think we can all agree items that fall into the category of feminine include long, silky hair; sensitivity and gentleness; having a small, petite body; wearing barrettes, scarves, dresses, makeup, chunky bracelets, delicate necklaces and a two-inch heel; painting one's toenails; and carrying a purse. But as we all know, that drugstore aisle with the "Feminine Hygiene" sign hanging above it isn't selling products to keep hair, barrettes, scarves, dresses, bracelets, necklaces, heels and purses clean and alluring. Shampoo, detergent, shoe polish, needles and thread, metal and leather cleaners are all found on very different aisles.

No, those dangling, aisle signs are talking about douches, wipes and sprays being sold as the means to allegedly keep the vagina clean, healthy and fragrant.

Please.

Didn't the feminist movement debunk the myth of douching and the like? Even as long ago as 1965, the American Medical Association stated, "From our knowledge of the anatomic and physiological facts, it is clear that the vagina is well adapted to take care of itself. In fact, douching, especially with highly medicated solutions, may upset the balance."[1]

So, why the resurgence? I'll tell you why: asshole, young women. It seems somewhere on the order of 50 percent of adolescent girls and young women now douche. They are douches.[2][3][4]

Instant audacity
I'm looking at a Summer's Eve print ad right now and among the many enraging sentiments are these:

"You were born with courage and what better way to nurture it than with a little extra care down there?" How about nurturing your courage by taking on a mental or physical challenge, such as enrolling in and passing a calculus class or learning to rock climb?

"When [your vagina is] clean and fresh, you can focus on any opportunity that comes your way." Exactly! Your poise, self-respect and self-confidence are drawn directly from the cleanliness and freshness of your vagina. All you need is a fragrant triangle, and you can do anything! Just douche before that bar exam; you'll nail it!

"[A little extra care down there] will help you unleash that bring-it-on attitude." You're about to present your business plan to potential funders, quick! Duck into a bathroom stall and wipe yourself with a feminine cleansing cloth. There'll be no stopping you!

Now, I see why I've gone nowhere. I live 30 miles from where I was born and in 25 years of working haven't cracked the U.S. Census Bureau's measure of "median, personal income by educational attainment" because I haven't douched once in my entire life! It's all so clear now.

It'd be such a dream if simply bathing our crotchal areas chemically would lighten our life's load.

Wake up, get kids and pets dressed and fed. Drive kids to school. Fight traffic to get to work. Manage lazy, excuse-ridden colleagues at the office. Run meetings, make conference calls, edit spreadsheets, go to the grocery store and Target at lunchtime. Answer endless, mind-numbing emails each of which requires three attachments. Fight traffic to get home. Pick up kids from daycare, help them with homework, make dinner, pick up the house, run a batch of laundry, clean up after dinner, bathe kids, get them ready for bed, manage all the little things they need before they go to sleep: water, the light isn't right, the room is too hot, they're scared. Check email or finish a memo on laptop for work. Pay bills, check bank accounts online and transfer money then negotiate a sticky situation with the husband before collapsing into bed. If douching could take all that away, hand me the squirt bottle.

Generation Y all the fuss?
You bumbling, backward-facing, young women. You are totally setting us back with your douching. The feminist movement earned women the right to vote; made public the awareness of rape and domestic violence; earned women access to contraception and other reproductive rights including abortion; forged the creation and enforcement of maternity-leave and sexual-harassment policies at work; earned women equal or greater educational and sports funding, and you're like, "Well, we don't need to be so rigid about the definition of feminism. I like my highlights and my French nails. I don't care if R. Kelly peed on a 13-year old. That was her choice as a woman. She could have said no."

This is the same generation of women, by the way, who are now not vaccinating their children, too. Never mind that grinding 150 years of science. Never mind those grueling 90 years of women's rights. Irrelevant. I'm placing my trust in Massengill. Yeah, well, piss on you then, too.

R., drink up. You got a lot of work to do.




© 2010 Tia Creighton
Hygiene image ©iStockphoto.com/RapidEye


1 - "Vaginal Biology and the Douche," Harold A. Kaminetzky, MD, JAMA. 1965;191(11):950-951.
2 − "Racial differences in vaginal douching knowledge, attitude, and practices among sexually active adolescents," Foch BJ, McDaniel ND, Chacko MR., J Pediatr Adolesc Gynecol. 2001;14:29-33.
3 − "Vaginal douching practices among women attending a university in the southern United States," Funkhouser E, Hayes TD, Vermund SH. J Am Coll Health. 2002;50:177-182.
4 - "Douching Behaviors Reported by Adolescent and Young Adult Women at High Risk for Sexually Transmitted Infections," Journal of Pediatric and Adolescent Gynecology, Volume 16, Issue 2, pages 95-100, April 2003

It seems everywhere I go and in the midst of anything I'm doing, the rude have shown up, too. I'll be at the gym and someone will be monopolizing the machine I want to use - that I came to use. When I ask, "How much longer do you think you'll be?" she'll invariably say, "Oh, I just got on" even though I've been biding my time on the treadmill for the last 20 minutes waiting for her to get off the elliptical, and the gym has a half-hour use policy.

In restaurants, there's always some big, blowhard, insurance salesman on his cell phone talking about golf and cigars in a loud, grating voice--or a woman talking on her phone at the salon about the complete inconvenience she was put through at Nordstrom when the saleswoman couldn't produce the scarf she special ordered. Do you think we all really want to hear your conversations, big fat man and privileged, white woman? We do not.



People are invariably rude, ridiculous, selfish and outrageous. They want to look good but don't want to be put out. This leads to some really obnoxious behavior. I worked for an attorney once who at Christmas time arrived at the office with a gift bag full of Christmas candy: A tall chocolate Santa, bagged holiday-shaped gummies, a moose-shaped cookie cutter filled with milk chocolate, a small Christmas novelty box filled with See's candy to name a few. He placed the bag on my desk to be seen upon my arrival. I saw the bag and asked him about it. "They're for your son," he said. I thought wow, what a nice gesture from this attorney who is kind of an ass. He does have a heart, I thought. When I got the gift home and began to look closer, I saw that some of the candy had expiration dates dating back to the prior Christmas. I then noticed some of the candy had created oil spots on their cardboard boxes and other chocolates had the telltale white-powder build up of stale in the corners of the candy. This A-hole gave me candy he had lying around for years which he'd probably collected in a drawer or found in a Christmas box lying in his attic. He then gathered up all this poison and said, "Here, give this to your child." Nice.

Rudeness, guaranteed
There's always someone on the bus or the train who refuses to move his or her backpack so you can sit down when there isn't one last seat left. There's always someone who doesn't pay his or her share of the split dinner bill. There's always someone cutting in line at a crowded bakery or taking too long at the pay booth to a national park asking the ranger to plan their day's itinerary or arguing that they didn't realize there was an entrance fee "for each person!". Um, read the website before you go, people.

My mom may be the worst offender when it comes to this self-aggrandizing behavior. It's so embarrassing to be with her sometimes, especially in restaurants. She orders servers around like she is Queen Elizabeth the First. I'll take this. I do not want that. This is cold. This is under cooked. No pleases, no thank yous. Just commands. One time my husband and I were out to dinner with her, and she sent her food back three times--the third time ordering something entirely different because the kitchen couldn't get her original order to her liking. She then had the nerve to take a few bites of the last item brought, announce she wasn't very hungry and ordered her meal boxed to be taken home. My husband and I gave the server an extra bit of tip to make up for the additional work and to assure she didn't spit in the takeout container.



Go into a public toilet, and it invariably hasn't been flushed or the seat has been left up or the seat is wet--if you can even get into the thing. Women forget how long they stood in line waiting for the toilet once they get into the stall.

There's always that guy in the BMW who cuts into the congested lane of merging traffic at the last minute. There's always that Lululemon-wearing mom who parks and leaves her car at the school drop off even though we're only supposed to let children out and drive on. The parents of half the school are blocked behind her, and the school bus and gardening truck are obstructed by her car, but does she care? No, I tell you.

Temperature gauge pegging
"I'm just one car." "I'm just going to be a minute." "I'll be no bother." "I only have a few items." Famous first words. I don't care how long you're going to be or how little space you think you're taking up or how confused you are, I was here first. Get in line, motherf'er.

I admit it. I do run a little hot. I need to try to control myself, breathe a little more and have greater empathy for people. People are no doubt walking around telling stories about encounters with me in a very different way: "This rude woman ordered me off the elliptical." "This crazy driver was honking incessantly behind me at the Yosemite entrance gate when all I was trying to do was figure out where the nearest handicapped parking area was." "I was trying to find a coupon in my purse, and this wild-eyed woman with big hair started banging the grocery separator on the conveyor belt so hard repeatedly that I couldn't concentrate and just told the clerk to skip it. I lost out on that 35-cents-off."

I'm sorry, people. I just can't hold it together sometimes. I'm judgmental, impatient and pissed-off with scribbles over my head most days. I've been advised to chant the serenity prayer when I get in these moods. You all know it: God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference. But that prayer really falls short in this modern day. It needs a more in-the-now addendum...

"And God," it should go, "when all that b.s. fails, grant me a pair of Skullcandy headphones, Gucci aviator glasses and an iPad with an unlimited data plan so I can thoroughly ignore all the kooks, cranks, fools, hogs, genetic-cul-de-sacs and go-nowhere goons who surround me." Now, that is a prayer.

© 2010 Tia Creighton

Megaphone image ©iStockphoto.com/YanC
Spitting-waitress image ©iStockphoto.com/Crazytang

The human body is a mess. It's an oozing, gassy, lumpy, hairy mess polluting out of every orifice and sloughing its way toward the day when it can only fit into stretch pants, knit tops and therapeutic shoes.




I see people who have made the switch over, and I wonder...did they know? Did they know when they were making the switch that they were pushing off from the dock of youth? Or did they hold up a comfort pantsuit in Clothing Island one day and say, "Huh, this isn't so bad."

I've clearly defined the line for myself. I will cross from youth to aging squarely the very first time I ever purchase clothing with fabric names I don't recognize: for example, "T400," "elasterell-P" and "viscose." Viscose. It even sounds like oozing.

But that line moves, as we all know. We've all set standards for ourselves, for example, about the types of people we'll date, the level of salary we'll accept and the few European brands of cars we'll drive just to find ourselves married to bald men; making mid-forty-thousand dollar money at jobs we hate; and driving Camrys.

Pathfinder wanted
I'm wondering if it's true: That our bodies have to go through a nuclear meltdown as we age; that we're all destined to wear big, giant underpants. And then I see the proof: my father-in-law's big-giant-underpant briefs hanging on the wash line at eye level over his patio; friends on Facebook starting to wear "active sets"; my dad--who was a pro athlete--walking like a fiddler crab pulling himself along by his one good limb. He needs hip replacement surgery and double knee replacements.

I saw a woman at a block party recently who gave me hope. She was probably 70 and had on the most beautiful clothes: a black square-neck tank top, tan skinny pants and buttery black leather mules. She was tall, thin and straight backed and had elegantly styled, pure-white hair. I noticed my friend Victoria studying this woman, too. After the woman passed, Victoria said, "Wow, she's a put together older woman."

"Yeah," I said, "I was just noticing her. I want to look like her when I'm that age, and I'm way off in the weeds."

I need a guide.

I've been looking in local magazines like San Francisco and California Style paying attention to the names of the stylists to perhaps hire one to walk me down the rough road of aging. But then as I flip through the pages and see what it is they've "styled," I realize I in no way want to look like this when I'm 60:



Gravity, a love story
It would be so much easier to care less and make peace with gravity. Holding hands with my new friend G, I could enjoy many things I've wondered about from afar: 7-11 DoubleGulps®, Jamba Juice's Chocolate Moo'd™ smoothies, Olive Garden's "Tour Of Italy" and Cold Stone Creamery's Founder's Favorite®.

It's a bugged-out twist on the Garden of Eden. "Come on, let yourself go a little," the snake of temptation whispers. "You're not going to deteriorate overnight. You can't fight Mother Nature." Then wham! G and I are power-chairing our way through Safeway to buy Joint Juice® and Glucerna®.

I never thought I'd care about aging, but now that I need a knee brace just to use the shower squeegee, I realize it's slowly happening.

I know there will be a day when I wear T400, elasterll-P, viscose or whatever the going synthetic fabric is. There's a whole industry devoted to the deterioration of the human body, because we cannot fight it. What I'm saying is I want to age consciously. I want to look those fabrics in the weave, accept their role in my aging and nod them into my closet. I don't want to suddenly wake up in high-waisted Lastex pants going how did I get here?

The cotton industry calls its product "The fabric of our lives," and I know why. Because as long as you can wear it, you're still out there living. When you're in anything else, you're on your way to being shaken into an urn or flopped into a box and buried or scattered.

For the record, please bury me in cotton -- or linen or silk or wool. (You can skip the leather or hemp.) I'd like to at least return to this big beautiful world of ours wearing something natural and classy.

©2010 Tia Creighton

Fat ump: ©iStockphoto.com/RBFried
Overly art-directed old broad: ©iStockphoto.com/ktmoffitt

I scanned Facebook furiously yesterday to see what people did on the 4th of July, and the reports were depressing. Seems we all spent time under canopies at the curbs of our tiny hamlets drinking Coors Light, eating Pepperidge Farm goldfish and watching parades full of Little Leaguers and fire trucks.

I get angry on the 4th of July. I look forward to it and then the morning of I get antsy and impatient and negative. I know what's ahead: plaid shorts, wife-beater tee shirts, stovepipe hats, green wigs, oversized rhinestone sunglasses, mediocre street musicians, hotdogs on sticks, cumulus clouds of gray-blue charcoal smoke, long lines, heat, Mardi Gras beads, crappy craft booths, white legs, big bellies, R.I.P. tattoos and flyers for mattress and appliance sales. Where do these people and products come from? I can't blame all of it on the omnipresent, accompanying, Fourth-of-July, traveling carnival. No, these are Americans. These are our compatriots. This is who and what we celebrate.

Accent on crap
I am forced to confront the reality of my country every Fourth of July, and I want that reality to be better. I want that reality to be Venice, Italy. And I live in the San Francisco Bay Area. I cannot for the life of me imagine what Fourth of July is like in Abilene, Texas--offense to Texas intended. Though I bet they had fireworks in Abilene. The city I live in is broke and so cancelled its fireworks display. My son and I had to settle for the televised Macy's fireworks and that, that is when I had to face the saddest reflection of American society today: Justin Bieber, who opened for the show.

Justin Bieber sucks. His music sucks. His looks suck. That grating auto tune his producers use for his voice because he can't sing sucks. His clap tracks suck. His pre-programmed drum machines suck. And there he is nominated by Black Entertainment Television for 2010 "Best New Artist of the Year." James Brown is roiling in his grave.

Got talent? Take a hike.
How dare a record industry that produced Ike & Tina Turner, Big Brother and the Holding Company and Aerosmith produce Justin Bieber. He's Canadian, so the U.S. didn't technically "produce" him. But he's an American commodity for sure. Discovered by Scooter Braun. Packaged by Usher. Endorsed by Will Smith & Crew.

Sharon Jones tries for twenty-six f’ing years to get a record deal, works as a prison guard at Rikers Island to pay her bills, and Justin Bieber gets a recording contract months after being seen in a YouTube video posted by his born-again mother.

Come on, you say, we've had packaged groups for a long time in this country delivering fluff to the masses. Well, I’ll tell you what, I’d rather listen to the Monkees, The Partridge Family and Alvin and the Chipmunks any day over this “dreamy Christmas elf”① Justin Bieber.

Jesus, man. Will someone get him hooked on heroine already? Watching his drug-addled demise on TMZ is the only way I'm ever going to be entertained by Justin Bieber.

©2010 Tia Creighton

①Saturday Night Live 4/10/10
Dog image ©iStockphoto.com/malamus-UK
Pier image ©iStockphoto.com/cunfek

I've been attending a writing workshop on Saturdays at a local, pretty cool Presbyterian church. Now, when I say cool, I mean laid back, comfortable with itself, not out to recruit or change people, not at all a proselytizing church yet a church that is civic minded and generous with its time and facilities.

I did wonder at first whether the workshop would be geared toward religion, but it wasn't. The prompts had nothing to do with God. The attendees didn't write about God. And so, I let down my guard.

You can imagine my displeasure when the group leader out of nowhere two weeks ago began giving writing prompts that were quotes from the Bible. My colleagues listened actively, wrote diligently then read their work breathlessly. Not a syllable of their writing revealed any malice toward the leader or cynicism about the passage or tome whence it came. Their writing instead blossomed with frilly Alleluia gratitude about Jesus' power and glory in their lives.

The group leader read John 11: 1-14, a passage about Jesus returning to where people tried to stone him to death. Here's what I wrote...

***



Returning to where you were stoned, to where people tried to stone you. That’s interesting. That’s the way I run my life. Keep going back to where things went poorly. Keep going back there...

Spring tradition
Just five minutes before I left this morning, my mom called to ask me to come--or more like to guilt me into coming--to Easter lunch at the house. My husband, son and I spend Easter each year as follows: We wake up, tear into our baskets then go to church--a church full on Easter morning with “two-timers,” people who show up in church twice a year: once on Christmas and once on Easter. People just like us. Then, we go to an alleged breakfast at my in-laws alleged club, then we go to my parents.

Let’s start with the “club.” Called the Highlanders, this is a Kiwanis or Elks on the cheap. It has a total of 23 members all over age 78. The club has twice-a-year spaghetti feeds, a Saint Patrick’s Day dinner, quarterly board meetings and the yearly Easter Brunch. I think this club used to be quite lively about 40 years ago, its membership swollen to 75, 73 of whom were alcoholics. They had monthly meetings with dinner and live music in their hall. They had weekly bingo nights and a treasury to spend, but people began to age and die off, and the club never recruited any young people. So now, it’s just old folks with walkers and hearing aids and mitigated taste buds. Which leads me to Easter.

Every year, my mother-in-law three weeks prior to Easter asks if we’d like to come to the club’s Easter Brunch. Let her know soon she always says as if the event is going to sell out. We never want to go, but we always say yes.

Our son is usually one of only two or three children who attends this event. When we get there, the curtains are always drawn, so it’s dark. Six-foot tables are set up with paper placemats at each. Each table has four sticks of butter waiting, and there’s a leaky pitcher of syrup at every third table. Of course, the bar is open. Pre-made gin fizzes and mimosas in clear plastic cups line up dutifully on the paper-tablecloth-covered card table awaiting their sacrifice for a five-dollar bill. The gin fizzes in particular are horrible. They are way too strong, like actually chewing on a juniper bush, but they will get me buzzed enough to get through the hour. Men with oxygen tanks defer to women in scooters talking loudly to their overweight, ill-dressed sons- and daughters-in-law. And then it’s time for breakfast.

Cheep, cheep, cheap!
We trade in our tickets at the kitchen window and go sit down. Soon comes a plate piled high with a slice of warmed, pre-cut ham; a mound of cooked, liquid eggs; and two Krusteaz pancakes, which cannot be cut with the plastic knife and fork laid at our place settings. We do manage, however, to cut through our Styrofoam plates with these utensils.

Our six-year-old has just finished performing an unsolicited, Star Wars, light-saber fight scene on the stage and is now picking through the basket of candy near the 100-cup coffee pot full of canned Hills Brothers. I suspect the fruit-flavored Tootsie rolls are from last April but wanting to be forgiving since it’s Easter, I check my suspicions and forward-date them to last Halloween.

“You got another five?” I ask my husband.

At this point, I realize a one-hour buzz isn’t going to be enough. In two hours, I’ll be returning to the place where I was stoned, where people tried to stone me, and there we’ll eat panini.

Happy Easter.



***

As you can imagine, the next writer was quickly called upon to read.



©2010 Tia Creighton
Stones image ©iStockphoto.com/lovleah
Panini grill images ©iStockphoto.com/GeorgePeters

I could see it coming. He took the wrong angle out of the parking space. Two steel poles were cemented in the ground behind us to protect the gas meter from being hit. I reminded him of the two poles. He said he knew.

He continued to back out of the space, turning left rather than the right I would have chosen. I kept my mouth shut. I've been working lately on criticizing him less, and so I sat quietly in the passenger seat of my car letting him drive his chosen path.

He got out of the space, but the car was headed in the wrong direction. We were pointing into the parking lot, a circular lot whose only entrance and exit was behind us. And still I sat, coaxing myself with "He's a grown man. He's been driving for forty-five years. He can get out of a parking lot."

He drove forward. I fully expected him to drive to the end of the lot and make a "U" turn. I relaxed, then tensed immediately when he pulled into an empty parking space. The logic of this maneuver slid off me. "What the hell is he doing now?" I thought but did not speak.

Neatly aligned in this new space, he put the car in reverse and backed out, again turning to the left rather than the right I would have chosen. Didn't we already do this?

The car was again heading in the wrong direction with its back end facing the way we wanted to go.

"Um," I chirped, "can I ask what you're doing?" I tried to mop the condescension dripping from my mouth.

"I'm trying to get out of this arcane parking lot!" he screamed.

With that, he put the car in reverse and decided to just back out of the entire place entirely. Backward we went: rolling, rolling, rolling and then the crash. More of a bass-note thud. I envisioned my bumper bent around those poles. Another dent in my car that I didn't do. I lifted my eyebrows with my fingers. I plowed my fingers across my forehead and raked them through my hair. This is what I get for keeping quiet: Damage.

I turned around to see that instead of hitting the poles, we--he--had hit another car, another driver, trying to back out of his own space.

Men.

Rulers of the world. Can't get out of a parking lot.


©iStockphoto.com/Acerebel


©2010 Tia Creighton

Let’s quit pretending that pole dancing is a legitimate form of exercise, OK? Let's just stop that. Learning to pole dance is exploitation plain and simple. The “fitness pole dancing” rage is so transparent, and it is becoming alarmingly mainstream. City parks and recreation departments are now holding pole-dancing classes. They might as well offer blow-job instruction on Tuesday and Thursday evenings wedged right in after scrapbooking while they're at it.

The teachers and many acolytes of “fitness pole dancing” promote pole dancing as great cardio and core-strength exercise. I don't argue with that, but running stadium steps and doing plank raises build cardio and core-strength, too. If participants were truly after the core and cardio strength, they would run the stadium steps, they would do the plank raises. But women are choosing to hump poles in boy shorts instead. It's odd. What gives?

An ancient festival
After the instructors and participants recite by rote that they pole dance for fitness, they then slip into a dreamy-eyed description of pole dancing to feel sexy, to express oneself through dance and movement and to get in touch with one’s sensual side. I’m not against women getting in touch with their sensual side. In fact I say, have at it, women. Touch your sensual side. Feel up your sensual side, but at least admit that it is the pole that heightens the sensuality of this particular activity. This is not normal dancing, people. Jazz and hip-hop and modern dance classes don’t involve floor-to-ceiling poles that women grind on. Let’s just say it. Fitness pole dancing is phallus worship.

Instructors and participants say the “sport”– they try to slip that in there – makes women feel accomplished and empowered. No, ladies, getting an MBA is an accomplishment; earning a black belt is empowering. The fitness pole dancing craze reminds me of the craze that happened a while back when women were choosing to attend workshops to examine their own genitals with hand mirrors. Somehow that was supposed to be empowering, too. The idea that women say they feel accomplished and empowered because they’ve learned to high kick around a brass pole is sad and clearly demonstrates the limited options women have to feel valuable.

A time and a place to meow
Women have to take some of the blame for limiting ourselves ourselves though. Pole dancing will make you feel like a slutty pussycat tease, and that’s cool; that has its place. But women who stop there -- and many women do -- who rely solely on their sex appeal as their calling card in the world never enjoy the brilliancy of a multi-faceted life. They limit themselves. And as more and more women choose lives based solely on physical appeal, the pool for acceptable roles for women shrinks.

Personally, I’ll feel empowered when tampon price gouging stops (You know if men had to use tampons they’d be a nickel a shtickl.) and when my clothing, hair cuts, dry cleaning, doctor’s fees and car repairs are equal in price to men’s. That’s real power, that’s purchasing power, that’s being equal in America.

©2010 Tia Creighton

Why Pole Dancing Should Be Left to Professionals:

I falsely accused a friend of mine of a horrible crime. I accused her of having children that wheel backpacks. "Rolling backpacks" they're called, but so far I've yet to see any child with one on his or her back.

This friend said she does not allow her children to wheel their backpacks. She said her four children absolutely carry their bags either on one or both of their shoulders and that they do not in fact own these types of bags. My eyes brightened to have found a kindred spirit: a parent who refuses to let her children wuss out.

I saw a kid the other day pulling a rolling tote that couldn't have contained more than a Pee Chee folder and a pencil. Its weight barely bore down on the wheels enough to keep them rolling. It was flip-flopping behind her like she was running with a kite on a windless day. I guess children with such bags are in training for the day when their butlers or personal valises will be handling their cargo, until then they themselves won't actually touch their luggage.

It really seems outlandish when a child is wheeling his case behind him. The children aren't to blame though. It's the parents. They are the ones buying these stupid totes. I've heard parents say, "If the kids' bags don't have wheels, they just won't carry their stuff." To those spineless parents I say then the kids' stuff gets left behind: in the house, in the car, on the sidewalk if necessary. It'll be the one and only time they won't take responsibility for their belongings. In my opinion, parents need to teach their children that life is not going to be served up to them on 360-degree rolling wheels for their convenience, ease and comfort.

I can dig people with large, heavy cases needing and having wheels; that makes sense. You got a 29- or 30-inch suitcase, yeah it's nice not to have to pick that up. You’re a court reporter and have to wheel a stenotype machine into court, sure by all means, roll. But a 20-inch carry on? A child's backpack? Come on! Seriously, man, a laptop case? A rolling laptop case? You can't carry that? Everyone has become so fragile.



Count the ways
So many things are wrong with these rolling totes.

First, they encourage a society-wide lack of responsibility. Responsible people carry their own weight -- both literally and figuratively. They don't wheel it around in pink, hardside spinners.

Second, they encourage society-wide greed and lack of discipline. People crave, acquire and allow more than they can manage and thus end up with spill over -- both literally and figuratively -- into expandable rolling uprights.

Third, totes foster the sissification of this country. Everyone is trying to find the easiest, softest way of doing things. No one is willing to rough it. No one is willing to do any physical labor. Did our country really win World War II? I've never seen a picture of a WWII soldier pulling his wheelie backpack into battle.

Finally, they're hoggy and inconsiderate. They claim an overallotment of personal space and -- again literally and figuratively -- subject the public to an individual's personal baggage. People pull them along clueless about what those bags are doing behind them. They're careening on one wheel out of control. They’re hanging up on the frames of airplane aisle seats. They’re slicing into people’s ankles. They’re tripping people when their owners stop suddenly. When they're doing the actual work they're designed to do -- as carry-ons for airplanes -- they take up all the space in the overhead bins, because they're crafted to the maximum size a passenger is allowed. Individually, yes, each and every bag clears the requirements, but collectively -- and that’s what we're all doing on a plane; we're all traveling together -- if everyone carries on the maximum-size bag allowed, there isn’t enough room for everyone to have and stow a bag. But people don’t care. "I'm allowed, so I'm going to” is the prevailing attitude of toters.



Go on, it won't hurt
So, as you can see, I have a lot against totes and those who choose to tote. Together, hand and handle, they're emblematic of a deep-seated problem in our society. We're becoming -- if we're not already there -- a nation of people who set their course and go, oblivious to those around them and certainly unconcerned about how their emotions, words and actions are affecting others. A civilized society can't exist if everyone is out for themselves about everything.

So, let's start symbolically and work from there. Pick up your bag for a better America! That's my appeal to you.


©2009 Tia Creighton
Muscle man image ©iStockphoto.com/Obak