Filed under: Middle Age, shopping, Spring Break, Travel | Tags: adulthood, humor, Middle-Age, shopping, travel
Apparently bathing suit shopping season is here. I know that because all over my social media feeds are ads for bathing suits featuring svelte and often malnourished models posing in ways you will never see on the beach.
I want to see real moms and middle-aged folks wearing real suits with REAL evaluations. How about a picture of a mom dragging her toddler down the beach because he’s refusing to leave?
Here’s a few I’d like to see….
Our beach track suit provides the support you need up top and the grip you need on the bottom while you run.
Review: 3 stars
Unless you’re wearing an actual track suit, nothing will cover and lift all the things. But I like the irony of wearing a Frozen t-shirt at the beach.
Forgot your razor at the beach? Or maybe you gave a half-hearted try at landscaping after doing nothing winter and your body rebelled by displaying red bumps of displeasure. Either way, we have two solutions:
Option 1:
This gorgeous suit comes with a pelvis flap that you can tuck in or leave out depending on how neglectful you’ve been.
Review: 5 Stars
Sexy and for all body types.
Option 2:
The Tighty Rightey bathing suit bottom made for women. Comes in a variety of colors and patterns.
Review: 1 Star
Appreciate the idea, but having your leg cut off at the upper thigh with a white stripe doesn’t look good on anyone. Also it looks like you went to the first-aid tent.
Is your skin the exact same color as the sand because you work in an office all year? Or has your dermatologist canceled all your appointments because you refuse to listen and now you know there’s like 10 moles that are pretty scary looking and you should probably cover up after all these years? Our whole-body suit comes in dozens of shades and includes footies, so no one will ever know. Just a add a little blending makeup to your face and you’ll look like you’ve been on the beach all summer.
Review: 3 Stars
5 stars for sun protection and keeping the dermatologist happy. 1 star because if you swim, the sand gets stuck inside the suit, and the suit doesn’t breathe well. If you’re a woman you’ll have a yeasty after one wear.
Afraid to bend over and shake out your towel or pass out at water’s edge because you might get a wedgie? Our “cocktail” suit is made to look like you’re just stepped away from a party. The material moves with you as you struggle to clean up your beach stuff after 2 bottles of prosecco or if you actually pass out. No more jokes about your hiney eating your suit – just a sophisticated outfit that says, “Yeah, I‘ve had kids and I like wine – fuck off.”
Review: 5 Stars
Fall not only brings Pumpkin Spice Everything and Coffee Cooters; it also brings school shopping days. I miss those days of throwing pencils, pens, protractors, markers and binders into the cart like bread and milk when a snowstorm is coming. I also miss those days of trailing along behind Daughters 1 & 2 as they paraded through the mall, frowning and rolling their eyes at everything I pulled off the rack. One thing I learned from those excursions, though, is that there are three kinds of shoppers, and they’re all based on fear.
The Buckshot Shopper. Daughter #1 spends hours browsing through each and every rack, touching, pinching and holding up every piece of clothing in the store. Buckshot Shoppers must see each opportunity for fashion excellence available and understand what that will look or feel like after purchase. When the time comes to select an item of clothing, there is much agonizing over which to choose: What if I buy the wrong one? What if I missed something that would have been perfect? What if the other store has a better color?
Buckshot Shoppers cover all the bases by looking at and touching everything. Although this type of shopping may generally come from a place of FOMO (fear of missing out), there are advantages to being a Buckshot Shopper. These intrepid explorers find new styles they might not see online or by zeroing in on only one particular style or item. They find sales that others don’t see form the front of the store and have time to down their pumpkin spice Starbucks potions in a leisurely manner as they browse.
The Surgical Shopper. Daughter #2 begins her shopping journey knowing what she needs, knows it when she sees it, goes into the store or online to order it, and that’s that. The Surgical Shopper touches as few items as possible, most likely because they are either overwhelmed by the selection available or they lack the confidence to sift through all the options: What if I do all this and I still can’t find anything? What if I can’t afford the thing I want?
This fear is often couched as “I don’t have time for this crap,” or “I just know what I like.” There are advantages to being a Surgical Shopper, though. A lot of money is saved when you only buy what you know you need and when you don’t drink as many Starbucks pumpkin spice lattes. The time a Surgical Shopper saves can be spent elsewhere.
Meerkat Shoppers can usually be found lingering outside store windows or even cupping their hands around their eyes as they browse from outside the store. Online they hit the same 5 -10 stores they know and like, but rarely venture outside that comfort zone. They also can be found silently watching other shoppers, judging their choices as they come out of the dressing room, weighing whether this or that would fit or look good on them, without having to touch anything. Meerkat Shoppers don’t require as much tactile feedback as Buckshot Shoppers, but they also don’t want to miss any obvious wins. Nor do they keep their focus as narrow as Surgical Shoppers, so they have a better chance of finding something new and out of their comfort zone.
Meerkat Shoppers have a combination of the other Shoppers’ fears. They are afraid of missing out, so they watch Buckshot Shoppers as they go through the process (online, Meerkat Shoppers accomplish this by filtering by “Most Popular”). They lack the confidence of Buckshot Shoppers, and so are more Surgical when they finally do swoop in to make their purchases. On the plus side, Meerkat Shoppers often generate a sense of gratification from not making impulse buys and manage to stay somewhat current.
No matter what type of shopper you are, or what combination of these you might be, don’t shop from a place of fear. Buy the things that make you happy, that you can afford, and that what won’t get you arrested. You can always find me for more deep thoughts – I’ll be the one surreptitiously looking in the store window.
Filed under: Exercise, Misc. Humor, shopping | Tags: catalogs, clothes, Comicon, dungeons and dragons, fantasy, magic, marketing, relationships, romance, sex, shopping
If people judged me by the catalogs I receive, they would probably say I am a woman somewhere between the age of 12 and 75, I prefer being athletic outside (true), I occasionally have an interest in high-end hunting attire (nope), and I may have a fetish for dressing like I play Dungeons and Dragons (also no).
It’s the last catalog topic that I find the most fun. The Pyramid Collection catalog, which I receive because I somehow got on a list, is a clothing catalog for wanna-be wiccans, female Renaissance Faire attendees, and those on the fantasy side of Goth (not the EMO, skeletal, dyed black hair and white-face makeup Goths). It bills itself as “Myth, Magick, Fantasy & Romance.” All true, if your idea of romance is to meet fellow wiccans wearing flowing blouses with lacy sleeves (think Seinfeld’s “Puffy Shirt”),
you want to meet prince charming after a joust at your local Medieval Times,
or your idea of fantasy is to meet a fellow enthusiast at ComiCon while waiting to do a meet-and-greet with the cast of Outlander or Game of Thrones.
But the most interesting thing about this catalog is that right in the middle, where the staples are and where it falls open is a double-page spread of a variety of sex toys for women. So, in addition to buying the many fantasy-related accoutrements, you can also purchase some toys to help you relieve the loneliness that apparently is assumed will follow the initial purchase. It’s genius, really – cater to women’s fantasies, then cater to them not panning out – all in one catalog.
Perhaps other catalogs should follow suit, in their own way: Athleta and LuLu Lemon could also put a spread in their catalogs that include the inevitable cheese boards, pizzas and wine that somehow seem to follow those departed New Year’s resolutions.
Men’s catalogs could offer sleek suits and upscale weekend wear, but also include a spread with wings, onion rings and a selection of porn (not that I condone porn in any way) when the suits don’t hide the douchey-ness beneath, and they once again are seated with their buddies on a Friday night at BW3s instead of out on a date.
I just can’t believe this marketing trend hasn’t caught on before – addressing the “Who I Want to Be” part of the customer, as well as the “Ok, This is Who I Am” portion, all in one place.
Land’s End is gonna have to step up their game.
I am the mall. Thou feareth me and loveth me. I am the mall.- Thou shall bring no false values before me, like budgets or credit limits.
- Thou shalt not take my name in vain, especially when referring to the unbearably long list of Christmas errands you still have to do because you waited until the last minute. It is not my faulteth you procrastinateth.
- Remember Black Friday, and keep it holy.
- Honor thy sales and thy markdowns.
- Thou shalt not kill…time hanging out in Starbucks or restaurants. Thy shopping list loometh.
- Thou shalt not steal thy neighbor’s parking spot when clearly, his indicators blinketh.
- Thou shalt not bear false witness against The Mall. Own up to where you have been; likewise, own up to the time thou killed while chatting with thy neighbor instead of shopping, and the silver thou hast spent.
- Thou shalt not covet thy fellow shopper’s loot. They arrivethed first.
- Thou shall visit no other retailers but me, especially not Amazon, Wal-mart or Target.
Filed under: Food/Drink, Misc. Humor, shopping | Tags: advertising, commercials, marketing, poop, sales, shopping, television, toilet paper
I pity the advertising firms that have to come up with new ways to sell toilet paper and not offend anybody. Toilet paper has one specific purpose, and it’s gross. Sure, you can say it has other uses, like failing to adequately remove eye makeup, or sticking to your shoe when you leave the port-o-john, but let’s face it: we don’t buy thick, soft toilet paper because of those little perks. I buy it because I don’t like wiping my butt with the tree bark found in public restrooms.
The other day I heard a commercial for Cottonelle that asked the experts (young kids), “How clean do you feel after going to the bathroom?” And of course, the kids all had cute things to say like “I feel as clean as a white, tiny kitten.”
Kids are cute, but they are not a surefire strategy for selling your product. If you really want to know if the toilet paper is any good, ask a hairy man – he’ll tell you. Ask a woman with IBS – she’ll know. Ask a woman who’s recently given birth – there better be some soft paper in her bathroom or somebody will pay once she gets a couple of hours of sleep. Or ask someone who has dogs that poop on the carpet a lot – they can tell you how durable and flush-able it is.
But don’t ask little kids about toilet paper and how clean they are – they can’t know.
Young kids are inexperienced wipers. I know because I taught preschool for 10 years, and I can’t tell you how many times kids would try to get me to come in the stall (I didn’t – teachers aren’t allowed to) and check to see if they “wiped right” or “got all the poo off.” Thanks, pedophiles, for not only making it inappropriate for teachers to hug a crying child, but for creating a situation where children learning to use the toilet stay itchy all day and develop rashes because teachers can’t check and answer that simple question.
Charmin got it right – they used bears in their commercials. Bears are hairy (i.e. credible), but still inoffensive because everybody knows if a bear shits in the woods and nobody’s around to see it…it didn’t happen.
But the real question is, do we need commercials at all for toilet paper? I think there are two rules of thumb for this:
- If it’s the generic brand, don’t buy it unless you must choose cost over comfort.
- A commercial isn’t going to tell you that more than 5 squares clogs the toilet, or that it comes apart in your hand mid-wipe. Your friends tell you that kind of stuff, so go by word-of-moth when it comes to TP purchases. And if your friends don’t tell you this, you need better friends.
Subourbon Mom 