3791 Beware of strangling sheets

Monday, November 4, 2013

We are doomed.  Last night on "60 Minutes", Leslie Stahl (I think that's who is was) actually said in reference to the Guantanamo trials, "one obstacle after the next".  I was horrified.

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If you ever see an ad for "1800 thread count microfiber sheet sets", usually mentioning Egyptian comfort in the text, DON'T BUY THEM!

I bought two sets maybe five years ago, when they first came out, at a booth at a county fair, for just about $49 a set. The product name was "1800 Thread Count Egyptian Comfort Sheet Sets".  The label said, "Enjoy the softness of Egyptian cotton", in large type. In smaller type it said "microfiber".  I stupidly thought that meant they were Egyptian cotton.  Egyptian cotton has exceptionally long fibers, so it is possible to spin it into finer threads, and I thought that's what the "microfiber" meant - very fine cotton thread - and that's how 1800 count was possible.  (Remember, this was before microfiber dusting cloths were so common.)

Not true.  Nowhere near cotton. They're a synthetic fiber. 

The damn sheets don't really fit any mattress.  Technically, they fit, the corners meet, but they don't stay taut.  The bottom sheet gets baggy in the middle of the bed because the sides won't stay tucked under the mattress, making folds and slippery patches, badly enough that when you move your legs, the sheets can, like, wrap your legs.  When you turn, the top sheet wants to tangle around you, too.  Unlike real cotton, they don't have enough body to behave.

The only good part is the pillow cases.  They can be good for your hair style, but they won't stay on the pillows.  You have to pin the opening closed or the pillow escapes.

The people selling this crap imply that you'd pay up to $300 for sheets of this quality in a major department store.  Bull poopy.  No legitimate store will sell them, and nobody anywhere sells them for more than $39, usually between $20 and $30.  Perhaps they figure nobody will sue as long as the price is ridiculously, embarrassingly, low.

See this online retailer:  http://www.egyptianbedsheetsets.com/bed-sheets.asp
Note that NOWHERE do they say anything about synthetic fibers.  These folks don't even mention the word "microfiber".  You are purposely led to expect cotton, even though they don't actually say what they're made of.

BEWARE!
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3162 Do Jeeps get hung up?

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

"Sometimes I wonder if men and women really suit each other.
Perhaps they should live next door and just visit now and then."
-- Katherine Hepburn --

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Oh, green Katherine, I so agree!

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I just watched a commercial for Jeep where they say that putting the wheels very close to the front and rear allows the Jeep to climb over bigger obstacles. Then they show it clambering over some huge rocks.

I noticed that the front wheel went over the big rock, but then it bounced off to the side.

Yuh. Uh huh. Because if you really climb up over a big rock like that and keep going straight on over it, especially if there's a dip after it, you'll get hung up on it in the middle.

If you want to really clamber over big rocks, with wheels spread way apart like that, you'll need a third pair of wheels in the middle. Otherwise you just make a very expensive teeter-totter.
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1868 Girdles!

Saturday, June 21, 2008, early am.

I was just flipping through TV channels and passed a commercial for another "body shaper". They seem to be all the rage now. What happened?

Until the late '60s we wore girdles. Some included the bra and right down to the mid-thigh, some were waist to top of thigh, and variations between. Everyone wore them if you were leaving the house. It was called a "foundation garment". A girl knew her mother considered her a young lady the day she was presented with her first girdle. Partly it was to prevent the dreaded jiggle. Mostly it was to hold stockings up. And everyone always wore stockings everywhere, all the time. We actually wore stockings with shorts! Bare legs were very daring, and only for the most casual of occasions.

Yeah, there were garter belts, but they were uncomfortable, let your stockings droop when you sat down, and made funny bulges. There were rolled garters worn just above or just below the knee, but everyone knew they encouraged varicose veins, and tended to fail at critical moments. You wore them just around the house.

So we all wore girdles, almost all the time.

Reliable pantyhose were not commonly available until the very early '70s. It was pantyhose and the Women's Liberation movement that spelled doom for the girdle. I am loose! I am free! This is me! Like it or lump it! We gloried in our natural bodies.

Suddenly, I'm seeing what amounts to girdles everywhere. They don't call them girdles. They call them smoothers or shapers. (Um, doesn't this imply your shape isn't good enough? Has it occurred to anyone that if they're lumpy, maybe their clothes are just too tight?)

Hey! They're GIRDLES! They are a negative symbol we rejected three decades ago! And you don't even need them for stockings any more. They are purely an external rejection of who and what you are!

What happened? Why are women backsliding? I don't like it at all.
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