Tuesday, November 6, 2007

Allergies, lies and home product parties

When I was a kid of about 8, I went walking in a field of grasses and weeds about as tall as I was. I remember my eyes getting very itchy and red and my nose running. My mother took tea bags that had been used, waited til they cooled down and she placed them over my eyes while I laid on my back. I remember it was very soothing, it was Red Rose Tea. I had a lot of itchy eye problems that summer and a lot of tea bag treatments. By the end of summer, my eye sockets were tea dyed brown and I looked like a raccoon. By the next summer, I was taking tablets and just running around groggy all the time. In later summers, I spent a lot of time getting shots in my bottom and was sore. It was determined that I was allergic to cats, dogs, well, any kind of hairy animal - no horse backing riding for this Girl Scout, tree nuts, bananas, melons and cigarette smoke. We had a dog and my parents smoked. They smoked in the house, in the car, everywhere. Oh yeah, the dog slept with me. I took a lot of tablets and carried a lot of kleenex. I was also allergic to grasses and pollens. So the inside made me sick and so did the outside. My mother said I would grow out of my allergies.... I think a cat ate her brain too.

Over 40 years have passed since my mother told that lie to me but thats ok because as a mother I lie to my kids all the time. You have to. My father told me things like that the cows in Norway had legs shorter on one side of their body than the other so they wouldn't tumble off the hill. I wanted to know what happened when they walked to the end of Norway, how did they get back? My dad said they became Swedish cows then and they kept walking. My mother told me that acne goes away when you are grown up. Another lie. My dad told me that I was left by the gypsys and even showed me the basket I came in. Since I was only kid in the family who was not blond, I kind of believed this one. I was also very short. As I got older, I started looking closely at the mail man and the milk man and the fuller brush man and I'd wonder....

I loved the fuller brush man. Not because I loved to brush my hair. I loved his case of stuff. It folded open and had lots of straps that held all the stuff in place. He had so much stuff in that case and he carried it door to door. When I was in my twenties, I was at my mom's when the fuller brush man came over. I was overwhelmed that he was still around. I bought a great boars hair bristle brush. I had that brush for ever until it disappeared one day. I miss the days of door to door salespeople. Now days, I don't give them the time of day as all they want to sell me is vinyl siding or replacement windows. Or its some kid out of rehab, who was bussed in to sell magazine subscriptions. Even the Avon Lady just leaves her catalog, no bag of goodies, no free samples. The thing now is direct sell parties. My oldest daughter sells Mary Kay cosmetics and I applaud her for this. Altho, its not something I would do. There is a party for everything. Cookware, candles, jewelry, home decor, art work, tupperware and sex toys.

There is nothing more interesting than sitting around with a bunch of women, passing around larger than life electric marital aids. Then you get to taste the lotions or even get a Qtip full of something that warms and excites! I had a blast but that might have had something to do with the large glasses of Cosmopolitans I sucked down. The group consisted of Girl Scout leaders and Cub Scout moms. The Girl Scout leaders were the rowdier bunch. Of course we left the kids at home. And what you purchased was placed in a black bag and stapled shut so none of your friends could comment on how kinky you are (or not!)

No comments:

Post a Comment