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Background: Our office, which is predominately male, has a white elephant gift exchange every year during the holidays. This is my first year with the company. Per Wikipedia, a white elephant gift exchange is a popular party game where gifts are exchanged that are typically inexpensive, humorous items or used items from home and sometimes, they are just plain trash; the term white elephant refers to a gift whose cost exceeds its usefulness.
I've participated in white elephants before. They're fun as long as people abid by the rules. I've been to parties where people get quite emotional when their gift is stolen. I caused a frenzy myself when I brought a back massager (it had been deeply discounted on sale) to the white elephant gift exchange.
I asked around to get a feel for how past white elephant were handled. It seems that about 20% of the gifts are gag gifts. The other presents are quite nice.
This year, I decided to bring a gag gift. I originally looked for a carved, wooden Jesus. I preferred one that either lit up and/or played Christmas music. I had no luck. I perused Nordstrom.com until I found something that would also deliver a laugh, a Bella Band. I cackled like Baba Yaga just ordering it.
I purchased a Bella Band for a pregnant friend of mine. She loved hers. However, my office is heavily male, and most of them are in their early to mid-twenties. Trust me, their significant others won't be using the Bella Band anytime soon.
Current Weight: 296.5 pounds
This Week's Weight Loss: 0 pounds
Lost To Date: 0 pounds
Pounds from Goal Weight: 156.5 pounds
Weight loss goal for next weigh in: 3 pounds
Current Weight: 295.5 pounds
This Week's Weight Loss: 0 pounds
Lost To Date: 0 pounds
Pounds from Goal Weight: 155.5 pounds
Weight loss goal for next weigh in: 3 pounds
I am in the process of getting caught up on my blog entries for the Blogger's Blog Tour. During the week of September 15 our blog topic was: What one thing you are embarrassed to know?
I remember reading an article a while ago that was a rebuttal to an ultra-conservative piece about how children should not be adopted by same-sex couples because they would be damaged by being raised under such conditions. The author of the rebuttal piece argued that children would we "damaged" by any notion of their parents' sexuality, regardless of whether those parents were the same gender or different genders.
This is so true.
When I was in high school, I operated under the happy delusion that my parents had sex the exact number of times it took to conceive my brother and I - two. As a grown up, I would say that - if pressed - I wish my mother and father fulfilling sex lives, but that I have no desire to know anything beyond that.
What does this have to do with what I am embarrassed to know?
In 2007, when it became clear that my father was not going to be able to return to his house, I began the massive task of sorting through his belongings. The house had been trashed by a crackhead that took up residence while my father was in the hospital (long story). While much of the furniture was gone, there were a lot of things scattered everywhere.
My nephews came to help so that we could get done faster.
I was sorting through a stack of odds and ends in the master bedroom when I came across my father's sex toys. What makes matters worse was that I gave a little shriek when I ran across his stash (I won't say what it was that I grabbed), so my nephews came running to see what had frightened me. They arrived just in time to find it in my hand with me trying to stuff it in the garbage bag and failing miserably. To this day, they get a kick out of recounting that story.
What am I embarrassed to know? I am embarrassed to be privy to the type of sex toys my father prefers.
I am in the process of getting caught up on my blog entries for the Blogger's Blog Tour. During the week of September 8 our blog topic was: What is the biggest faux pas you've ever committed?
I reached back in my memory for anything that would make me cringe in embarrassment but that was not too mortifying to post. There are some stories that don't need to be told, even in a fairly anonymous blog.
It should be mentioned that I was a fairly spoiled child. My parents were not rich, but we were quite comfortable. Add that to the fact that I was generally well-behaved, especially in comparison to my rambunctious brother, and you'll see that I had a lot of privileges as a child. My mother and father certainly set boundaries, but there were times when my behavior went way over line.
Picture it. Los Angeles. 1979. My cousins and I attended the same elementary school. My aunt would pick us up from school. There were six of us kids in all, and we would wait at my aunt and uncle's house until our parents came to claim us. My aunt is a very soft-spoken and petite woman. She corrects with a quiet gentleness. It is this technique she used to tell me that my ears were in need of attention from a Q-tip.
I have no recollection of why this set me off so much. All I know is that I went into a screaming, tantrum at this suggestion. I kicked my aunt and called her a liar before going into full meltdown. Or rather, I started to go into full meltdown. My tantrum came to a complete halt when my uncle scooped me up from the floor by my neck (he had come home early from work and had entered the house without me noticing it) and began delivering a brisk spanking.
The spanking did not last long, but my backside ached for quite some time afterwards and my mortification lingered as well. I was sent to the basement (it was a rec room) to sit in the corner and contemplate the error of ways. To this day, I kind of cringe in horror when I think of my actions because my aunt is such a genuinely kind woman; it was a horrible way to treat her.
Last week, we had a new question for the Blogger's Blog Tour: What is the worst diet food you've ever been served?
The first time I really started to plump up was when I was in high school. In response to my burgeoning waist line, my parents removed the high calorie snack food from the house - not that there was much to begin with - and replaced it with rice cakes.
Nowadays, Quaker Oats makes rice cakes come in yummy flavors such as apple cinnamon, peanut butter, etc. Back in the 1980s, the favors were a little more limited and a little more bland. Rice cakes were the Model T of the snack food world in that you could have any flavor you wanted so long as that flavor was plain.
The rice cakes we had in our house were bland, seriously bland. The air in the roof of my mouth had more flavor, and those rice cakes were actually tastier than the worst diet food I have ever been served.
The worst diet food I have ever been served is a Nutrisystem's Chicken Breast Patty. It should be said that, for diet food, Nutrisystem does a good job of providing low-calorie meals. Some of the food is tolerable and some of the food is quite yummy. The Chicken Breast Patty, however, is just flat out gross.
What's inside the package looks *nothing* like the photo on the outside, and it tastes like flavored rubber. The first time I tasted the Chicken Breast Patty, I took one bit, chewed maybe three times, spit it out, threw everything in the trash, and went to the cafeteria for a turkey burger.
Current Weight: 289 pounds
This Week's Weight Loss: 0 pounds
Lost To Date: 0 pounds
Pounds from Goal Weight: 149 pounds
Weight loss goal for next weigh in: 5 pounds
Background: Our office, which is predominately male, has a white elephant gift exchange every year during the holidays. This is my first year with the company. Per Wikipedia, a white elephant gift exchange is a popular party game where gifts are exchanged that are typically inexpensive, humorous items or used items from home and sometimes, they are just plain trash; the term white elephant refers to a gift whose cost exceeds its usefulness.
