June 2006

If for some reason after all my pleading (PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE) you did not watch the video to the left, I encourage you to do so immediately. We all have things we’re scared of, but leave it to Maury Povich to find the only two women on the planet willing to admit on national television that they are deathly afraid of… pickles and mustard. WHAT? Ridiculous as it is, this is one of the MOST entertaining things I’ve seen in a long time. I cram to understand (yes, I’m bringing it back – BIG UP MC Lyte!) why Maury didn’t apply the same formula he’s used for years on his network talk show to his and Connie’s cable show. Surely it would have been more successful. You think people teased you in school before because of your (ahem, ahem)… unique phobia? Well let’s see how they treat you after they see you trying to outrun a tray of pickles… Sidebar — do u think as a prerequisite to being a guest on Maury, you have to demonstrate your ability to run like a lunatic around the studio? I mean, at least one woman does it every week on Paternity Test Tuesday. Maybe it’s like running the 40 at football tryouts… The producer has his stop watch out like, Yes, yes… that’s a great story… but uh… how fast can you run around the studio barefoot? Get set…. GO!!!! I dunno — Anyway, watch the video. It will not disappoint.

As soon as I saw her I knew what was about to go down. I was in Lane Bryant looking for a nice red necklace to go with this red bag and shoes I have my eye on, and there was this petite little foreign lady staring at me. She had in her hands the LARGEST pair of jeans in the store and as she starts walking towards me I try to brace myself.

PLFL: This is 28. Is your size?
 
Me: NO!

I rolled my eyes and tried to walk away.

PLFL: Well (reaching out to grab my arm), would be too small?… or too big?
 
Me: (HUFF) Too big.
 
And I’m thinking, “You’re holding the jeans up not a foot from me. Can’t you see that they would be too big?” But instead of saying anything, I just put down the necklace I was looking at, turned around and walked out of the store. Maybe I overreacted a little, but really, who even let her in? I think that in order to shop in a plus size store, you should have to meet some kind of height/weight requirement. There should be a cut out or display or something like at Disney World… “You must be ‘this’ big to enter this store. If you do not meet size requirements, you must be accompanied by a regulation big girl.”
 
Plus, what woman buys clothes for someone when they have no idea what size they are? Duh! I mean, even guys these days know to peek in their girlfriend’s jeans or swipe a look at her bra before trying shop for her. I might have even been willing to help her — maybe — if she’d been like, “My friend/sister/cousin is about your size. Would you mind helping me find something that might fit her?” But what she did was so not cool. Boo!

It was like 90+ degrees today in D.C. and the air conditioner was broken in my church. I was alright for the first half-hour or so, but after that I was just sweating like crazy. I was like, “I’m leaving. I CANNOT take this…” Now for those of you who are judging me, understand… I’m Baptist… We STAY in church all day. I was about to make my move, but then I thought about it… if nothing else I’ve ever done has damned me to hell already, leaving church because the A/C is broken should just about do it. Short story shorter, I stayed thru the end of the service, cuz from what I hear hell is hotter than 90 degrees.

Game 3 NBA Finals. 9.3 seconds left in regulation. Heat down 2-0 in the series, up by just one point in the game. Gary Payton sinks maybe the biggest shot of his career… and what do the fans in Miami start chanting? That’s right. “Whoop, there it is.” Ummm, Miami, I get that you were excited, and I know your city is home to Luther “Uncle Luke” Campbell, Tag Team, 69 Boys, etc., but “Whoop, there it is” was so thirteen years ago. Try and do better next game, OK? Like maybe on Thursday nite y’all could go with “This is how we do it.” Just a thought.
 
 Congrats to the Heat for pulling out Game 3. Now let’s make this a series.

OK, I’m not sure anyone cares about this as much as I do, but I went to the Hershey website and I saw the warning there. Apparently it’s on Reese’s, Hershey’s candy bars and Kit Kat too. See for yourself. The thing is the damn warning is on a page that’s promoting a collect-your-wrappers-for-cash game promotion. Now, call me crazy, but the whole point of that promotion is to get you to buy/eat as many Hershey’s candy bars as you can so you’ll have a better chance of winning the money… yet they say they want you to “consume in moderation?” Whatever, this is just like the folks at Philip Morris warning us about kids smoking or lung cancer… and we’re supposed to think they actually care about us?
 
In the words of Jay-Z. “We don’t believe you. You need more people.”

“May cause skin and scalp irritation, hair breakage and eye injury.” If you’re a Black woman and you listen to urban radio, you’re probably very familiar with this group of side effects. It’s listed at the end of just about every radio commercial for black hair care products. I’ve heard it daily for years and it always makes me giggle. The things we do to our hair… Well, I was in the car today and I heard one of these commercials, and as always — giggle, giggle. And then right after, a commercial came on for Hershey’s. I didn’t know Hershey’s actually advertised candy bars — I mean I can’t remember ever hearing a Hershey’s commercial on the radio before — but maybe that’s because they never caught my attention like this one did. I don’t remember much about the commercial, but at the end of it, there was a woman speaking quickly in one of those low “side effect” voices and she said, “Candy is a treat. Please consume in moderation.”

No really, it REALLY said that, word for word. Please e-mail me if you’ve heard it… Are we that bad off as a country that we’ve gotta have warnings on candy commercials? Are we abusing candy to the extent that we need to be reminded not to overdose? I really don’t know what else to say about that, except… wow.

Wow.

You know how when people first become parents, they say things like, “I never thought I could love something so much…”
 
Well, that’s how I feel about my new sofa. I liked it in the store, but when it got to my house,,, damn. I am sooooo in love! Now, I know it’s not everyone’s taste. It’s green velvet, but it’s mine and I love it. I asked one of my girlfriends what she thought about it and she started grasping for words the way you do when a good friend shows you a picture of their ugly baby. “Well, it’ll really set the room off,” she said. “This isn’t what I was expecting at all.” It was clear what she meant, but it didn’t change the way I feel about my sofa. It is beautiful.
 
I was having kind of a rough week, so one of my girls dragged me out to the club last nite. There was a concert going on, but I hate crowds so we stood in the back. We were standing next to this group of people — three girls and a guy. And one of the girls was a pretty big — larger than me, and I only mention that b/c it’s relevant. All three of them were pretty short and her one girlfriend was like, damn, I can’t see the stage… So what does my plus-sized sista do???… She grabs her friend around the waist and LIFTS HER UP OFF THE GROUND so she can see the stage.
 
WHAT?

Me and my friend and the rest of the people standing by us just kinda looked awkwardly around at each other like, “Did you just SEE that?” I mean, so what you weigh twice as much as your girlfriends. No self-respecting big girl should EVER do anything like that. According to our rulebook, there are some things you can use the advantage of your extra pounds for… like, you can sit on top of your girl’s suitcase if she’s having trouble zipping it and stuff like that… but picking up another grown ass human being like some swollen version of She-Ra… Unacceptable. I felt like I should pull her aside and be like, “Girlfriend. Have some pride,” but I couldn’t. I was paralyzed.

YAY! So tonite the NBA finals begin, and Dallas vs. Miami is gonna be a pretty good series if you ask me. Dwyane Wade is the truth. He’s gotten a lot of recognition this season, but I still think he’s a little underrated. The Knicks are and have always been my team (MAN, that’s hard to even type) but I hope Miami wins… Even if Pat Riley is a traitor, Shaq needs another ring. (HA! J/K). Steve McNair was traded to the Ravens yesterday. I have a crush on him, so I hope he passes the physical.