It all started as I walked innocently through the outdoor mall toward Victoria’s Secret on a strapless bra quest. I navigated my way around the hundreds of mall kiosks, resisting the siren calls to improve my hair’s texture and heal my life. I sauntered confidently. I even snickered a little to myself. I could DO THIS. I can SAY NO. And MEAN IT. I may even have roared. I AM WOMAN!

That’s when I bumped into the Flying Dutchman.

To be honest, I have no idea who the Flying Dutchman is — maybe a war hero? Or a trapeze guy? Accessing Google at this point would interrupt the momentum of my story, so I’ll do a search later and probably be real embarrassed when I discover the Flying Dutchman is a crack ointment or douche cream. Which actually…

Back to the Dutchman I created in my head.

He was small, lithe, wily. He spoke with a melodious, thick, fake accent. His eyebrows were bushy and voluminous. He was spry. He could leap POWs in a single bound, fly over the circus elephants with grace and verve, moisturize inflamed butt cracks.

Or whoever the Flying Dutchman is.

But back to the Dutchman I created in my head.

He’d been trying to get me to his kiosk for a good solid minute. Beckoning me over. Winking his eyebrows. Standing in front of my legs and refusing to let me take another confident step.

He had hand cream to sell dammit. And he was going to sell it but good. To me. Because? (I drew this conclusion later) I looked like a middle-aged beleaguered housewife in need of a good bra and some attention. I was easy easy pickings.

“‘ ‘Ello madame,” he says. “Leet me warsh your handz for you.”

“No thanks! But thanks anyway. But NO.”

“Oh but madame! You need a leeeetle time for yourzelf. Let me take goood care of youz.”

{{Thinking: His accent is a bizarre amalgamation of Boston and The Most Interesting Man in the World.}} {{Saying:}} “No. Really. No. By the way? I said NO. Get off my legs.”

“Oooohhh. How you meeek me laugh so, you minx. Come here, youz.”

(I possibly utilized poetic license with the minx part)

At this point, I felt bad. I know. I KNOW. Obviously, this fake-accented, butt-crack cream did not deserve my pity as he was hounding me so, but it’s just that he tried so hard. And I did need a little time to myself. So why not spend it at a mall kiosk?

“Fine. But real quick. Really. My boobs need me to go and get them a bra.”

“Ohhh hhhooo hooo ho, you scamp! Youz meek me laugh still!”

He takes my hand. He is totally trying to seduce me so that I will buy his hand cream. I know this. I KNOW this. But it’s just so funny. Also, I am a middle-aged beleaguered housewife in need of a good bra and some attention. Still, I look at my watch, implying that I have places to go.

“Please hurry.”

He leads me to a small porcelain bowl set in the center of his kiosk. He rubs a salt-like substance on my hands.

“Now, madame. Rub your handz togeether. Open up thoz pores. Let the gold flakes in this lotion draw out alll impurities.”

I rub. He pours water over my hands from a classy urn of some sort. I look into the bowl. There is all kinds of dirt and shit in there.

“You zeee madame? That ees all in your skin. We get eet out. Toxins, dead skeen, chemicals.”

I look again. It’s reallllyy dirty in that bowl. What the hell is IN my skin? Where has this Flying Butt Crack Cream been all my life?

I am tempted to get this stuff and slather it everywhere. On hands. Feet. My bathroom counters.

I look to the left. I look to the right. Is my husband lurking about? He would have my head. How much is this stuff anyway? Did he say there was gold in it? Shit. It really is dirty in that bowl. I have so many toxins circulating wily nily in my system. I must get them out!

While internal dialoguing, I catch the eye of the hat kiosk guy. He smirks. He’s seen this all before. He shakes his head. I get it. I’m a sucker.

Damn it! Almost foiled again.

“That’s pretty convincing,” I tell the Dutchman. “But I have to go.”

“Madame! Wait. I ‘ave not zeen your eyez. May I just look for a meenute?”

He’s hoping to butter me up. He thinks I can’t resist his bushy eyebrows at full strength. I’ll show him.

I lift my sunglasses up and say, “Yep. Here you go. K. Gotta run.”

“Oh!” He puts his hands to his chest. “I ‘ave a ‘art attack. Youz eyes so preeeetty.”

I hear his lame protestations as I hightail it out of kiosk territory, but as I leave, the hat kiosk guy gives me a thumbs up and fist pump.

This is awesome. I was able to say no and win respect for it.

“Madame!” The hat kiosk guy calls. “I ‘ave a hat for your beeeeautifeel head….”

Further research revealed that the above is the Flying Dutchman. Which doesn’t work for this story at all. Please pretend it is not here.

I originally posted this two years ago. And now our Verizon contract is up. Which means it’s time for new phones. Which means I am going to spend 18 days in a wireless store with my husband. Please send a straitjacket.

(I dial my husband’s cell phone, after a few rings, The Rock picks up)

Me: Hello? Honey? What are you doing?

Him: Hi babe, I’m at Verizon. You want to sign up for this family share plan or what?

Me: Sure, OK. Can I meet you there?

Him: Yeah, but hurry. I’ve been here for a half hour already.

Me: Doing what?

Him: Looking at the phones.

Me: This whole time?

Him: It’s been a half hour! What whole time?

Me: I’ll see you there.

(I hang up)

(10 minutes later, I enter Verizon. The Rock swoops over and seats me on a bench. He whips out the Verizon 85-page brochure with its dog-eared pages and begins to cover the pros and cons of every plan.)

Me: (shaking chicken bones, newt’s eyes and dragon’s teeth in palm of hand, then throwing them randomly at the catalog until one sticks)

This one looks good. Let’s do this one.

Him: (gasping) THAT one? The one with the VCast?

Me: Yeah, I don’t know. I guess. VCast. Sounds good. Let’s do it. (getting up…)

Him: Wait! (pulling me back down) Did you see the Navigator option?

Me: Nope! But sounds good! Let’s lock it down!

Him: (slightly panicking) Do you even CARE if we get unlimited texting?

Me: Not really. You ready?

Him: But if we go with the Premium package, we get {blah, blah, blar blar diddly blar}! And if we went with your standard plan, we’d only get {blither blather blither blather}!

Me: Mmm. I see your point. Let’s do that.

Him: DO WHAT?

Me: The blither blather thing you said.

Him: But that one doesn’t have 3MB of {bippity boppity bippity blah}!

Me: Do we need 3MB of bippity boppity bippity blah?

Him: No! But 3MB! That’s a lot! In case we do need it.

Me: Are you or are you not the man who still has all the manuals for your 1991 Tandy computer because they might come in handy one day?

Him: {sheepishly} I don’t know what you’re talking about.

Me: Honey, we don’t need 3MB of bippity boppity. {closing eyes and pointing} Let’s just go with this plan here.

Him: {sighing} Fine. But now we need to pick our phones.

Me: Oh crap. OK, but let’s make this fast.

Him: These are our phones we’re talking about here! Our lifelines! Our links to the world — and to EACH OTHER. What do you mean — make it fast?

{spend the next hour touching, testing and holding dozens of phones. The Rock examines each one for optimum fingerpad circumference, LCD brightness and tonal clarity. I follow him around and point out the shiny ones.}

Me: {whining} Are we done yet? I’m real hungry and my knees are burned.

Him: What? Are you talking about?

Me: {babbling} I had my laptop on my knees, see. And I’m suffering from most probably severe radiation burns…

Him: {interrupting} Radiation burns! Right. Are these phones coated with an anti-radiation titanium shell? I’ll need to consult each one’s owner manual.

Me: Honey? Can we just get a phone and a plan and go?

Him: Babe! I’m doing this for us! The proper phone will save us time and money! And…{he says, reading from the manual} …port to any 3G network!

Me: What’s a 3G network?

Him: 3? G? A network? It ports there? Hello?

Me: You don’t know, do you?

Him: No. But can we get it?

Me: Sure, let’s get it and GO!

Him: OK. In a minute. I’ve just got to pick out my Bluetooth earpiece, keyboard cover, screen shield, phone case and vehicle charger.

Me: {slowly being eaten alive by radiation sickness as my stomach lining sloughs off from lack of nourishment} Are you kidding me?

Him: OK. Now do I want the blue, green, silver, black, white, red, or gray earpiece…? Or the plaid? And don’t EVEN get me started on those anti-glare keyboard covers…And of course I’ll need to see the schematics for all this equipment…

And that’s when I fled the store on my irradiated kneecaps.

p.s. The Rock’s due diligence yielded two great phones and the perfect plan. Left to my own devices, I’d have ended up with two paper cups connected by string. Or a combo cell phone/missile launcher/photo scanner.

When I was an eighth grader, I decided I wanted to be just like Julie Hinnegan. Athletic and popular, Julie had this amazing long, straight hair, even white teeth and a lispy girly laugh. Since I couldn’t be athletic OR popular and because my hair resembled chicken fluff, I only had the teeth and the laugh going for me. So I mimicked that laugh for a good three months. It was kind of like, “thhh thhhh thhhhhh,” a sound made by sticking your pink popular girly tongue between your even white teeth and blowing. It was ridiculous. It was a non-laugh, really, and more like an explosion of lame air. But I thought it was cute and would bring me good tidings, and so I copied it. Thhhhh for thhhhhh.

It got exhausting soon enough. I was an open-mouthed laugher and the remembering to close my teeth over my tongue was a chore. I returned to my loud, enunciated, HA HA HA! and never entered the popular group.

After that stupid experience, I kind of swore off trying to be like other people. For the most part. Every now and then, I’d try to find the EXACT SAME Esprit sweater as Mary Lisa Kay, but I mainly stayed myself. Big dorky goofiness and all. Turned out when I became fully me, I was happy and befriended. It was nice.

But I’m getting all weirded out again. I read too many blogs and lack confidence, so feel I should be like the “other people.” You know, the people who are funnier or edgier or craftier or sublimer or more self actualized-er. Many days, I don’t feel “enough,” and hyper analyze my writing and wonder how I can be not so much like me, but like them.

Luckily I snap out of it most times. After many posts stopped and started. By now, I know my voice AND what is NOT my voice. As I’ve discovered, I kind of can’t help but be me. It leaks out. And then I let the prose go like a full-blown San Diego Momma hose.

I do have many moments though. Insecurity sucks. It steals your voice, it really does. Weakens it. I try hard not to be a namby pamby and just write like I write and not try to emulate this person or that. It’s a constant challenge.

So this is a long-winded way of introducing you to this week’s PROMPTuesday, which is:

How did you find your voice? Did you lose it and regain it? Do you still feel like it’s missing? Or are you unabashedly, unreservedly YOU. If so, please do tell. On all counts.

Please post your submission in the comments OR post in your blog and leave a link to your blog in the comments.

First time to PROMPTuesday? Read a bit about it here.
Want to see what’s been written in the past? Catch up on the PROMPTuesdays archive here.

I’m the person who believes almost anything. If you tell me a ridiculous story you completely pulled out of your ass? I will ask with eyes wide open, “Really?”

Like:

Any Person: “Hey Deb! I have monkeys in my butt!”

Me: “Really?”

Another Person: “Deb! Want to borrow my invisibility cloak?”

Me: “Ooooo. Really?”

Or

Yet Another Person: “You should be a model.”

Me: “Wow!” {{thinks for a moment, then:}} Really?”

So it comes as no surprise that I am often the target of ne’er-do-wells. Whereas The Rock will answer telemarketer inquiries with “No thank you,” and then hang up, I say, “Tell me more!” and then hang up. In the year 2013.

All this came to a head this week in two separate incidents that got me thinking:

Maybe I need to toughen up a little.

See, earlier this week the doorbell rang. I answered to find a young 20-something man holding a packet of leaflets. Well give me a Mormon boy in a tie and on a bike and I am jelly. I will listen to those guys for days because they’re just so sweet and earnest. I feel horrible sending them away when they’re only doing God’s errand.

Thankfully though, this guy wasn’t a Mormon.

He was in pest control.

And this is what he says:

“Hi! I’m just doing a neighborhood survey. Have you noticed any bugs inside or outside your house?”

Well I know where this is leading and THIS time I’m going to be smart about it.

No, I say.

“Oh?” He says back. “Because your next-door neighbor has been seeing black widows outside. And….” he pauses ominously. “Inside.”

My resolve weakens and I blurt out, “Really?”

“Yes.” He says confidently. “And your neighbor across the street noticed holes in his garage suggesting rodents.”

Now I’m quivering. “Rodents? Like. Ro-dents? Those big ass rat things they show scurrying over subway tracks on Law and Order episodes?”

He nods. “Uh-huh. The very same.”

He’s got me. Hook, line and mousetrap. “So you’re saying…there might be black widows and rodents in my house?” I am literally shaking like a Polaroid picture. “Right now?”

He knows I’m his. “Right now. And here’s where I can hel—–”

The Rock is upstairs in the office. He knows what’s about to go down. He clunks and clatters to make his presence known. He’s about to fly down the stairs and give me a talking-to, I just know it. I hurriedly shut the door in the Mormon pest controller’s face. “Thanks but no thanks!”

Gullibility crisis averted. Until…

Well I’ll have to tell you about the mall kiosk guy in a bit. Honestly? I’m pretty sure I’m THIS is scurrying around in my garage disguised as a Mormon.

P.S. Seriously. There’s a mall kiosk guy story. And I’m coming back to tell it.

I’ve had occasion lately to think about friends because I’ve met so many new people since I logged online. Count up the folks I’ve encountered through blogging and Twitter and it’s easily hundreds of people I’ve made personal contact with in the last year alone. Some people I’ve hit it off with, others I could take or leave, and still others have become “close” casual acquaintances. I haven’t been exposed to this many new people and potential buddies since I attended college 20 years ago. I love meeting new people, but it does raise the question of quality vs. quantity. I crave deep relationships, and although I really really enjoy acquaintances as well, I find myself feeling like something is lacking when I spread myself so thin that I can’t focus on nurturing those friendships that extend below the surface level.

In the online world, so very many people are called “friend,” but now the term is obviously defined differently than the “friend” that existed before Facebook, Twitter, and blogs. Now, a “friend” can simply be someone you met in passing at a mom’s night out. Having an online presence practically guarantees that you’re exposed to a whole new world of people who “know” you and whom you “know.” It’s especially challenging when you end up liking so many people. Maybe an overgeneralization, but most bloggers I’ve met I love. You see each other at tweetups, blogger events, etc. and eventually or instantly become friends. There are so many things people who communicate online have in common –a love of writing, probably, but also of being more than (more than a mom, a dad, an employee). Also? Most people I’ve met this past year, are hilarious. Which really throws a kink into things because I adore hilarity. And next thing I know? I’m keeping in touch with 8,000 people I like to “talk” to online.

Still, there’s more to friendship than shared interests and humor. There’s shared time for one. My in-real-life best friend was around when my heart was first broken, when I first lived on my own, when I worked my first professional job, when my mom died, when I met The Rock, when I married him, when I was pregnant. We’ve been through so much together, so much I can never experience with my “new” friends. But I don’t think I’ve spoken with my best friend, who lives in Chicago, for months. My online friends? I “speak” to nearly everyday. And for some of them, I have a deep, abiding love akin to how I feel about my longtime friends. But there IS a difference, I know that. With my best bud, I know she is there for me through thick and thin and vice versa. She’s a proven good thing.

And although I love so many of the people I’ve met in the last six months alone, it begs the question of what is owed. And intention. Are some people “friends” with others to climb the popularity ladder? To “steal” some of his or her influence? Sure. It confuses me and I wonder about the intention issue all the time with online buds. Since I don’t have any status of which to speak, I usually am on the receiving end of being shut out of “circles” and this hurts. Also, you KNOW with your longtime in-real-life true blue friends that they will try not to screw you over for status, get competitive (usually) due to a raging ego, want the best for you, and not hurt your feelings (not on purpose anyway). But what guarantees are there for newfound online friendships? Even though you enjoy the person’s company, do you really know him or her? You just don’t have the shared experience with each other to know he or she isn’t an a-hole in real life. Already, I’ve felt excluded (on purpose) and worse: not liked as much as I like. Nothing worse than unrequited online love. Well there is. Like global hunger and political conflict. But we’re talking pretend world here (as my husband affectionately refers to the blogosphere). Because really, there is absolutely no guarantee that what you expect from a friendship (mutual love for one) (being there for you for another) in real life will exist in your online friendships. There’s just no precedent or expectation for good behavior. No one owes you anything just because you have them in your Twitter stream.

After all this, there is one conclusion I’ve drawn: online friends — when they cross over into your real life — are just like any other friend. Soon enough, you figure out that some are passerby in your life, some stick around forever. Some turn on you, some define the very word “loyalty.” I guess there really is no difference in the end.

So ignore this post. It’s not as insightful as I thought.

And? Tweet me.

P.S. For the record, I have met several true blues online I would trust with my heart any day.

Today, write about something you miss. Is it a person? A time in your life? A house?

Your butt 20 years ago?

Whatever it is, please pen an ode to what you miss. Then…

…post your submission in the comments OR post in your blog and leave a link to your blog in the comments.

First time to PROMPTuesday? Read a bit about it here.
Want to see what’s been written in the past? Catch up on the PROMPTuesdays archive here.

There’s the running outside and breathless requests for dinner. The wandering on white carpets with dusty feet and jelly hands. The “stop touching mes!” and the Miranda Cosgrove CD blaring from the play room. I want nothing more than to unwind with the Real Housewives and a glass of Cab, but it’s time to eat. I butter bread, toast fish sticks, microwave peas. A plebian dinner at best, but it’s all I can manage on this night.

And I think as I turn the oven to 375 degrees: this is what we do. And it’s OK b/c we love and we get by and it’s OK. But just 20 minutes? Can I have 20 minutes? And then it’s time to eat.

Through it all I know in a few short years that pass like comets, I will give anything to have those 20 minutes with my kids just the way they are now.

Jelly hands and all.

My husband is a tile and stone contractor whose work is so famously awesome he’s had amazing jobs for 20 years strictly by word of mouth. I mean, he’s good. We’re talkin’ San Diego Home of the Year stuff. Classy, reputable shizz. However, with the recent economic slump, he’s found it necessary to do a little advertising. So…we’ve sent out newsletters, had new business cards printed (thanks @vpg_printing!), and placed signage on our family vehicles. Really nice, posh signage in a bright, fabulous color you can’t miss. Also, everything is spelled correctly in a readable, striking font. Like I said. Real grade A stuff.

I’d take a picture of it, but I’m no longer allowed near the car.

See it’s important to represent the business in respectable, somewhat elegant, non-lame ways, and so when I drive our SUV with the “KW Tile and Stone” prominently displayed, I am aware that I must be on my best behavior. Not speeding for instance. Or flipping people the fuck bird. Or eating a bean burrito while dialing my pimp.

Important, non-offensive things like that.

Also, I must be eye-catching and MILFey, so people will be enticed to look at the driver of the auto, then let their eyes sensually drift down to see the signage. Like a sexy, but ultimately frustrating, bait and switch.

And sadly, I have failed at all of these things.

Most recently, I was in the midst of cooking some turkey ridiculousness that called for chipotle peppers. Well, I only had serrano chilis, which is a whole different ball of searing hot wax. So I called my friend a few streets over and asked if she had some chipotle peppers I could borrow. Sure enough she did and told me to come right over to pick them up. And here’s the rub: Although it was 5PM on a Sunday, I was not washed, dressed, coiffed, or brushed. I looked like Keith Richards 50 years from now. In addition, I had just worked out and had Toots’ orange polka dot headband securely fastened to my crazy straw hair with butterfly clips. No makeup was a given.

I guess I kinda thought I wouldn’t look like complete hell, because I don’t know? My eyes are sightless marbles?

And so I went. Got right in that car with the classy signage and drove the few streets to my friend’s house. But here’s the thing about my neighborhood: People are out ALL THE TIME. And everyone knows everyone. And if you drive a car with bright yellow signage? They especially know you.

Word. As I drove into my friend’s driveway, her next-door neighbors and their entire extended family sat on lawn chairs in the front yard, staring shamelessly at my Courtney-Love-on-a-drug-binge face. Of course, knowing I had to get out of the car in my droopy butt sweats and braless sweat tee, I shouted maniacally for my friend’s son to come out of the house NOW! OH MY GOD, STAT! and bring me the chipotle peppers so I didn’t have to disembark the car. Thankfully, he complied and as I drove away with my peppers, I did a bizarre suburban-Crips fist pump and shouted to the neighbors:

“KW Tile and Stone! Way to represent!”

If by “represent,” I mean resemble a coke whore moron.

Which is why I’m not allowed to drive the SUV again.