Consumerism causes us to want certain things that we don't always question but which are pretty downright wacky, no? Take, for example, shampoo commercials. They peddle products that purport to renew our hair and give us a "healthy cuticle." You want a healthy hair cuticle, don't you? Of course you do. Healthy cu--DUDE. Isn't hair pretty much dead? Isn't that the point, that when we cut it, we're not slaughtering live fibers but hocking off some dead mop?

Today, in New Adventures in Cooch Probing, the mid-wife took a peak at my cervix and concluded it was not yet ripe. You could not believe my indignation. How dare she say that about my cervix?! I mean, it's good that it wasn't rotting, either, but I was so sad. After all, when a woman allows you such access to her Lady Land, the least you can do is tell her something nice. I don't know what that would be. The furniture is pretty? Love what you've done with the place? Hearing my unripe cervix was not yet "a laboring cervix," I felt so depressed. Go ahead. Just take all my lunch money and tell me my hair is one big pile of unhealthy cuticle while you're at it....

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But then I got home and discovered some brilliant spoils had arrived from Matilda Sue and company. All thoughts of the unripe were dashed when I beheld this package. I really got all wobbly-lipped when I saw the bracelet. I'm ga-ga for the handmade jewels, but when I noticed the MOM charm (seen below in blurry format) and realized I was soon going to be a person worthy of wearing a MOM charm, I really got the shivers. The time was ripe for such a feel-good gift, and I'm thankful to my friends who might otherwise never know the perfect timing of their kindnesses.