I don’t know how many of you saw this little gem in the history of miserably bad advertising the other day. I know it almost made me repaint the wall behind my computer a rich coffee brown, albeit a splotchy one. It almost makes me think they hired Frog Hammer to come up with the campaign. Warning: some language may not be safe for work.

Anyway.

This got me wondering, what is the worst advertising campaign you’ve ever seen? Share the glee, people!

I’ll even start. I saw this ad when I was but a wee thing knee-high to my current vertically challenged size. It was in a magazine my mother was reading. There was a very grim looking gentleman sitting behind a desk with folded hands. In huge letters above his head it read: “When you think of pests, think of us.”

It took me a while to stop laughing long enough to check and discover that the company was in bug extermination. It’s been more than forty years, but it still makes me giggle.

This was a slightly different week at Casa Twistie. You see, Mr. Twistie was away at a conference. It doesn’t matter what it was or where. The important part is that he was off doing his thing, and I spent four days and nights alone with the excessively evil Jake the Cat.

Meh, big deal, you may say. But in my case, this happens a couple times a year at most. That means that I’m not especially well-versed in being by myself for more than a few hours.

I am, by nature, a gregarious person. I am also, by nature, a person who needs to be alone. I walk the tightrope by working from home by myself and then spending my evenings with Mr. Twistie and good friends, and occasionally  meeting a friend for lunch at a neighborhood  bistro or a brief shopping expedition.

But four days pretty much by myself? I don’t do that so often. There’s an art to being alone for an extended period of time that I don’t think I fully mastered until quite recently. In case it will be of use to anyone else, I hereby give you my tips for being alone superfantastically over the short term.

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Hello lambkins!

Just a few admin notes before the long weekend:

Admin Note Number One:

My email is back up! In theory! So if you’ve been emailing me over the past two weeks and getting hateful kickback messages about quotas and what not, your problems have all been solved. That doesn’t necessarily mean I’ve got immediate access to it, but at least they’ll get to my in box, so GO! Write me!

Admin Note Number Two:

I am going to be out most, if not all, of next week.  Mama’s gotta have herself a little op, and that little corral of Andean village children I keep for organ harvesting purposes won’t stay nine years old forever!  During that time I am relinquishing full administrative rights to our beloved Raincoaster, whom you all know and love from such sites as Manolo’s Ayyyy!, Lolebrity and of course, the eponymous Raincoaster, all of which are worth a daily gander. Hopefully she’ll pop in with a post or two, but if not, hold tight little bunnies and wait for my return.

Admin Note Number Three:

DAMN.

(it’s been too long since we’ve had some hotness up in here)

Admin Note Number Four:

Have a fabulous weekend everybody!

I was a little surprised to find such shock and awe over the idea that over-sized sunglasses are in bad taste the other day and I thought it might be a good opportunity to talk about the lifespan of a trend.

If you go for a trend you mark yourself as trendy. That’s fine, but trendy has a shelf life and you’d be wise to know when to jump off that band wagon before it drives itself into gas station and dollar store wasteland.

Let’s talk about over-sized sunglasses. The trend? She is over.

I have three problems with oversized sunglasses.  Four if you include they look dumb.

First and foremost they are played. out.

Way played out.

Way WAY played out, and have been for a good couple of years now.  They were fresh-looking in 2004 and stayed more or less on the right side of gauche (see what I did there?) until late 2007. It had a standard three year trend run. Fine and respectable. And I’m sure they’ll come back again in say, 2025 so if you bought an expensive pair, keep ‘em somewhere.

However:

It is now 2010.

The industry-standard two year trickle down grace period is well over. It’s time to put ‘em away.

Generally speaking, if you can buy a trend at the dollar store or a gas station, then chances are that particular trend has officially become saturated and is now followed only by People Who Don’t Know.

You are not People Who Don’t Know.

The other thing about big sunglasses is this:

They’re not glamorous.

They’re not going to make you glamorous or mysterious or interesting if you’re not glamorous or mysterious or interesting already, and if you ARE glamorous or mysterious or interesting already, you probably already know better than to make that sort of rookie mistake.  (For further reference please see fig. 142a in your texts, tit., Mathematical Odds of Women in Shirts Spelling “Classy” in Rhinestones Actually Being Classy.)

Also: You’re Not Famous (probably)

Most of us aren’t famous.  I’m the level of famous where I get recognized for who I actually am maaaaybe  once a month, and then get the “Hey! You’re! Uh! Somebody!” about every other week (we will not speak of the dark days as a 20 year-old big girl in our Nation’s Capital where I was constantly mistaken for Monica Lewinsky) and yet somehow I manage to avoid the papparazzi glare on a regular basis.

I’m not Jackie Onassis and this isn’t 1974.  I can get away with regular sized sunglasses. I’m pretty sure you can, to0.

The thing about a trend is you’ve got to know when to let go.  I’m not talking about the hyper-militant Fashionistas who wouldn’t be caught DEAD wearing last year’s Balmain military jackets. That’s dumb, but a good rule is if you’re playing the same card now that you were three years ago without a significant tweak in a modern direction then maybe you want to go ahead and give yourself a little revamp.

Hope this helps! Ask questions in the comments field