H. Hsu Word Salad

I’m a big reader, and it’s actually become an uncontrollable reflex. I’ll scan say, a BART station, and sometimes commercial slogans and messages pop into my mind faster than I realize where I read it. Then I have to re-peruse the walls to see the origins. Damn marketers. Got my attention even if it was to check and make sure these were slogans and not intrusive thoughts as my deteriorating mind. Advertising is a brutal field these days as they try to claw their way into an oversaturated atmosphere. Where else can an ad be slapped that isn’t already plastered over?
This month I find myself both amused and insulted by…tampon wrappers. Oh, yes. That is indeed what I said. Not a topic of conversation one ever decides to spend time upon. Run away not if you must. A quick glance before tossing something into the rubbish bin and my brain caught the phrase “You’re a take-charge kind of girl!”
Exclamation point and all. Geez, do these people in marketing and packaging have nothing better to do than come up with motivational mantras for tampon wraps? Am I a take charge kind of girl? What if the reader were in fact, a simpering doormat of a girl? I wouldn’t be having a cycle at all if I were a “girl” now would I?
What in hell else is there in this box…?
“Focus, focus, focus” On what, may I ask?
“Keep your mind and body flexible” well, I agree with that, that’s what yoga is all about.
“Get off the bench!” I did not realize I was on a bench. Nor a fence.
“Go for the win” but I’m in the loo right now…
“Go for your personal best” again, I’ll set a new personal record once I get out of the loo…and stop reading toothpaste tubes and packaging.
“Life is a sport…Play to win!” well, that seems awfully vague.
“Persistence pays off” what, is that a message for constipated people or something?
“Stop Stressing…start focusing” Hmm. Without a worthy thing to focus upon one just creates stress I think.
“Win or lose, play fair” OMG I needed my tampon to teach me about the golden rule!
“Ready for even the toughest challenge” WOW if this product can make me THAT tough I need to buy a dozen more…
“Celebrate a bold attitude” this one is open to all sorts of potentially dangerous interpretations.
“Game on!” am I on TV or something?! What are we playing?
“All you can do is your best” well that doesn’t sound very motivating.
“Live out your dreams” well actually, that would require either illegal activities or hallucinagenic substances…kinda not down with that scene no more.
Or here’s my favorite in terms of unintended ridiculousness:
“Go play. Have fun. Trust your tampon.”
WHAT!? Ah hahaha. Trust your tampon? I’m sorry, I really preferred “The force is with you” or “Just keep swimming”, or even ‘Hakuna Matata.”

This is what I get for buying something dolled up and marketed for “active women”. I don’t know what you’d call my life half the time but active is definitely in there somewhere. I am mildly offended and feel like I am being condescended to by a hygiene product. But I guess it’s no less infantilizing than the way they put pink flowers and fruits and crap like that on everything sold to women. A sporty take charge theme is somehow preferable to the fresh-as-a-flower -yippee-skippee theme normally used in female ads.
It occurs to me, as an aspiring writer, that it was someone’s job to come up with all these little tampon-as-fortune-cookie tidbits of wisdom. Probably someone else’s job to approve them and then format it for the wraps. Gosh would that be like a dream job in terms of cush or would it make a self respecting writer want to shoot themself? (”Yeah, I’m a freelance author. My last gig? Oh, well, I, er…wrote copywriting for a commercial product. What was it? Uhm….”)

Ah, the oxymoronic term of the week! Government, by definition these days, is not very organized.

A client vented yesterday about how angry the current economic situation was (I feel ya pal, we are all so there…)  “How is it that I have to work so hard all these years and they can’t even manage to do a budget?!”

Today I am online trying to sort out the arcane requirements of a small business. Whew. Talk about a challenge - no wonder so many people just work under the table.  I already passed my 2 licensure examinations and paid my $400+ per 2 years plus 36 unit hours for renewal as a psychologist.  Already established fictitious business name. Forked out $ for that every 5 years.  Got a business Tax ID. OK. Getting more confusing now, but I’m game.  My sublesser got us a fire department inspection. I think the inspection took 2 minutes since they firepersons can just stand at our door, glance around, and OK, that’s the entirety of our bitty office.

Right now I am trying to look at additional permits or whatever needed and I am astounded and at the level of categories on the state website.  Special permits for coaches, referees, and personal trainers, guide dog schools, pest control, dental hygienists…

In the job list I searched for my category. WTF? They had acupuncuritst, ice manufacturer, repossession services, photofinishing services (with the exception of 1 hour, why I can’t imagine), incineration for refuse, courier, brewery, winery, beef cattle feedlot, flavoring syrup manufacturer…but NO counselors, psychologist, therapists. What is up with that? Uhm….I guess acunpuncturist and medical doctor are the closest categories to what I do so I check those boxes.  Am led to a page with more gobbledygook.

This exasperation is on top of the morass of assisting my mother through her adventures with unemployment benefits.  The wise people there accused this senior citizen of fraudulently under reporting her puny temp job wage and not only tried to fine her hundreds of dollars, but also blacklist her! Yes, just go blacklist a 65 year old why don’t you, so that for 6 months she can’t access the legally entitled benefits she has worked for all her life.  Never mind that her one small error was due to your indecipherable forms and incompetent phone mis-advisors.  As if one could survive on the piddly benefits to begin with!  I mean, if she had no family to help out - how do people survive these lean times? I can’t imagine how many others with less family support at managing.  Hence our current trend on “going postal” ’round the country I suppose.

Mum’s situation cleared up a bit following a little circus that included nasty letters written by yours truly and her having to attend an actual court trial to explain her situation to a judge.  They rapidly concluded that it was all just an errror. So great, she has her pittance back and has vindicated her name.  Meanwhile, I am wondering how much taxpayer $$ went to this stupid farce and staffing the judge, reporter, etc, at court…much, much, much ado about NOTHING.

Breathe….the world is a better place due to the fact that P handles our taxes.  Because if it were me, there’d be no end to the griping and irate letter writing…the only silver lining of sorts in all this is that I am realizing how no one else know what they are doing half the time.  It’s kind of like how I felt when I began attending county behavioral health meetings.  I was intimidated until I realized we were all disorganized and clueless together.  Same for SSI, IRS, etc.  It’s a tad alarming to realize that we are not in wise hands, but that at least I can muddle through, and probably no one will be checking.