Thinking Outside the Box...

Some of you that attended our Jewsian Fusion wedding may remember the wedding cake cookies that my mom made. Well, she's at it again. She made some pirate shaped cookies for the birthday party of the son of a friend of hers. Here's a picture of the prototype cookie that she sent to me:

Pretty cute huh? I think so. Yes, I mentioned to her that a real pirate wouldn't be smiling, but this was a specific request from the mother as she didn't want them to scare the children. Fair enough.

Hopefully by know you're wondering where the hell I am going with this story...well here it is.

There is one minor detail I have purposely omitted. My mother does not own a digital camera. She also does not own a cell phone with a camera. This puzzled me, so I asked her...

JewBoy(11:42:25 PM): how did you get a picture?

Mom (11:42:38 PM): what picture?

JewBoy (11:42:43 PM): that you sent of the cookie

Mom (11:43:02 PM): Now don't laugh. I put the cookie on the printer (Note-when she says printer, she means the flatbed scanner part of the printer/copier/scanner)

Mom (11:43:11 PM): face down

Mom (11:43:35 PM): that is why it is a little smushed

How awesome is that? Normally I pick on my Mom for her lack of technological prowess. However, this time, I was very impressed. Using only the limited resources available to her, (The combo printer-copier-scanner I got her for Hanukkah one year) she came up with a clever way to obtain a digital picture to email to her friend. Good for Her! Apparently, along with insanity, technical ingenuity is also inherited from your children.

In case anyone finds themselves in a similar predicament, she sent me the following tips to pass on. I'd like to think they're common sense, but I've lived long enough to know that anytime you think something is idiot proof, someone goes out and manages to be a better idiot.

Hi JewBoy,

Just a couple notes in case you blog about my cookie pictures. There are a couple rules people should follow for scanning cookies.

1. Frosted cookies need to be frozen first or else the frosting gets all squished and messy.

2. Put the cookie very gently face down on the printer, and put a piece of paper over the back for a background.

3. Do not close the lid all the way or cookies will get mashed down. Hold the lid up a little until the scanning is over.

4. Remove cookie and wipe the screen thing so there is no greasy frosting left.

5. At this point you can either put cookie back in freezer, or just eat it.

Love, MOM.

So there it is. I'm hoping she didn't learn any of those rules the hard way. :-)

My Retail Super Hero...

I'm guessing most of you were able to identify the "sore thumbs" from the picture. However, just in case you are stumped, here are the answers. The Matzah ball toy and Matzah holder have no business hanging around the Hanukkah items. Matzah is for Passover, a completely different holiday. Passover is to Hanukkah as Easter is to Christmas, except even less related. Adam's comment also made a good point about the items being over $10, especially the day after Hanukkah ended. That's just BS.



So just a little bit of housekeeping. We are off to DC tomorrow to celebrate the new year with none other than Mr. FindingTheFat himself. It's sure to be a great, artery clogging time. Since I'll be out of town, there are no guarantees that I will be able to keep up my "one post a day" pace that I've been doing until now. I'll try, but again, no guarantees. The same goes for after the new year. I'll post regularly, but not necessarily every day. I want to make sure that the quality of posts is not compromised just to maintain the quantity.

Speaking of quality, I'm going to use tonight's post as a way to salute someone who still believes in quality. The other week was the annual JoS. A. Banks 50% off sale. Everything in the store was 50% off, PLUS an additonal $25 off any $100 purchase. It's by far their best sale they have ever had and the only time where my favorite, the tailored fit, traveler's shirts are on sale. It would be a slap in the face of my people if I didn't take advantage of such an event. Unfortunately, they did not have one of the shirts I wanted. At any normal store, that would be the end of it. I would have left empty handed and more disappointed than my date to my sophomore year Valentine's dance. But I digress. Enter the retail super hero. The 60+ year old big bellied salesman. He took out a crumpled piece of paper from his pocket and proceeded to take down all of my information. He vowed that come hell or high water, he would find me that 16-34 spread collar, ecru shirt. I doubted his genuineness, as I too am in the sales profession and know that it is saturated with empty promises, but I complied none the less. Several days later, I received a call, he found a shirt. But, it was the pin point collar. He knew it wasn't the right one, but wanted to see if I wanted that one instead, very nice of him. To be honest, I was suprised he took the time to call at all. After all, this is for one shirt that ends up being about 70% off. I got another follow up call this weekend that he is still on the search to find the shirt. He's sticking to his word, he's not gonna give up, I'm gonna get that shirt. Then today was the kicker, I received a hand written thank you note for my other purchases.

I couldn't believe it. I can't remember the last time I was at a store where the salesperson even pretended to care. This guy has spent more time time on my shirt search than most people spend planning a Bar-Mitzvah. Incredible. How could this be? Nobody cares anymore, I learned that all to well when I was teaching high school. Then I saw his business card and it all became clear.

There it is. He has no choice, he's Ken Awsumb Jr., Son of Ken Awsumb Sr. Clearly from a long line of Awsumb men. When Mr. Awsumb says he's gonna do something, well dammit, he does it. He's the kind of guy that doesn't go fishing, he goes catching. "Fishing" implies the chance of failure and that's not an option for Mr. Awsumb. So here's to you Mr. Awsumb and my 16-34 Ecru spread collar shirt. I know you won't let me down, you can't, it's not in your blood.