It’s All About Me

Posted on March 5, 2022 by Sheila Moss

I am in a fashion rut, I decided. All I wear is tee shirts. I need some pretty blouses to wear. I used to wear skirts or dresses, but jeans and t-shirts are much more comfortable. I wear them most of the time now. Still, it would be nice to have something a wee bit dressier than a tee.

It is time to go shopping. I try on dozens of blouses, but nothing seems right. They are too small, too large, too bright, too teenage, or too old lady looking. On the other hand, they have a lot of cute t-shirts. Take for example the black Vera Wang.

“No, stop it! I am not looking at tees.” I have a closet full of tees and that is why I am here, remember?

I narrow it down to three blouses that I like that are feminine, do not have necklines down to my bellybutton, are not large floral sofa prints, and have sleeves long enough to cover my pale arms. I use a gift card and a 15% off promotional card. Everything is on sale. By the time I am done, I get clothes practically for free (my favorite word).

DAY 1 – I select the pink floral challis, very nice. I have also splurged for a couple pairs of capris since they were on sale too. I pair up the blouse with the black pants and a strand of pearls. Very chic. I am a fashion statement. But no one even notices that I have on something new. Surely someone will say, “Is that new? Did you go shopping?” Nada. Not a word. I’m miffed.

DAY 2 – I wear my new print blouse in aqua and navy. The description calls it an animal print, but I’ve never seen an aqua animal. I have a lot of turquoise jewelry that I seldom wear, and this gives me the opportunity to wear my aqua bead necklace with the shell focus bead. Paired up with the navy capris, it makes a darling outfit, to me at least, but apparently not to anyone else. Mum is the word. No one says a thing.

DAY 3 – Okay, after declaring how much I hate purple, I finally decided to buy something purple and give it a whirl. It isn’t solid purple, only a purple print, but more purple than I ever wear. And wouldn’t you just know it. I am minding my own business a friend compliments my outfit. “I like that color,” she says. So much for not wearing purple. I’m going to have to bite the bullet and get over my purple bias.

I have mixed feelings about fashion. On the one hand, I can’t stand women who are so vain that all they can think about is clothes, makeup, and jewelry. Like teenagers, they are so narcistic that they think everyone is looking at them and actually cares what they wear. Fashion magazines play on vanity with insignificant criticism of celebrities. “Two clothes-conscious starlets wore the same dress. Which one wore it best?” Gag!

Still, we have to wear something. Most of us want to look presentable in public. I’m now on a roll with buying new clothes. Once I start, I can’t stop. It’s an obsession. I’ve ordered some new tops out of an online catalog now. They looked really nice in the pictures. Hope they look as great in person. I’ve been tracking delivery for five days, anxiously waiting.

Now that I’ve browsed clothing sites and purchased merchandise off the Internet, the cookies on my computer have gone ballistic. They know my taste and keep showing ads for things I like. My PayPal account is spinning like a top. I’m developing a serious shopping compulsion. Can one become a clotheshorse in only a week?

It’s all about me, people. Watch out world, and don’t get between me and the clothes racks if you value your life.

Copyright 2012-2022 Sheila Moss

Posted in Fashion, Humor, Shopping | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 6 Comments

Bringing Home the Bacon

Posted on March 3, 2022 by Sheila Moss

My eyes blinked. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing on a television commercial. Burger King, home of the Whopper, was advertising a bacon sundae. Did I hear right? Did they say bacon and ice cream? Surely, they were joking.

No, it was for real; the screen was showing a cup of ice cream with bacon sticking out of the top.

I immediately knew that I had to check it out. How could I pass by such an opportunity? Nashville is the test market. If it goes over here, you can soon get a bacon sundae at a Burger King near you.

The next day I reminded Honey, “I want to go to Burger King.”

“What for?” He had already forgotten. I don’t know why he puts up with me sometimes.

I didn’t know where a Burger King was located. It isn’t a place I frequent on a regular basis. “I think I know where it is,” said Honey. He got on the Interstate and headed for the Burger King. Unfortunately, Honey’s memory was insufficient and when we got there, the Burger King was a Wendy’s.

What to do now? Well, get out the old smart phone and Google it, of course. I didn’t see anything nearby. Oh. No, don’t tell me there isn’t one.

“Wait, here’s one,” I exclaimed pointing to the search results. So we headed down the road to a Burger King about 5 miles away. I still think there was one closer, but we couldn’t find it.

“Do you have bacon sundaes?” Honey asked the drive-thru speaker.

“Yes, we do,” said the voice at the other end. Did I hear a bit of disgust in the voice, or was it only my imagination?

The sundae looked exactly like the one on TV, soft-serve ice cream with chocolate syrup, covered in bacon crumbles, with a slice of bacon sticking out of the top as a finishing touch.

Why is it called a sundae anyhow? Stories seem to vary as to where and why the concoction was invented with several places claiming to have served the first one. The most popular story is that soda water was forbidden by law on Sunday, so the ice cream soda was served with the same ingredients, minus the soda water. The name was changed to sundae because it wouldn’t be right to name it after a holy day.

Whatever the reason, the ice cream dish became a popular favorite at soda fountains, usually located in the local drug store. The classic sundae was ice cream topped with chocolate syrup and a cherry on top. Soon the chocolate syrup became other flavors: cherry, strawberry, pineapple, caramel, or whatever.

I’m sure the inventor never imagined that the creation would sink to the point of being topped with bacon. Burger King says that everyone loves bacon, so why not? They incorporated the old idea of using something sweet and something salty to complement each other in taste.

Some have simply called it a gimmick to draw attention to Burger King in the fast food wars where everyone tries to get more and more creative for the publicity.

Eventually, I did get around to eating it, all 510 calories of soft serve, chocolate, and bacon. The bacon did not seem salty, just smoky.

 I can’t say that I liked it, only that I managed to eat the entire thing without getting sick. I think I prefer my salt on peanuts. It may be true that southerners will eat anything fried, but not necessarily bacon with ice cream.

Somehow, I don’t think this is going to become a popular item, not even on the breakfast menu. Some things just don’t go together.

Now that I’ve tried it and saved you the trouble, I don’t think I want another one.

 

Copyright 2012 Sheila Moss

Posted in Food, Humor | Tagged , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Pondering Purple

Posted on February 25, 2022 by Sheila Moss

I have this thing about the color purple. I don’t know what it is, but for some reason I have the feeling that I cannot wear purple because it does not look good on me. It may be that I don’t look good in any other color either, but I like to think that it is only the color purple.

There used to be an idea that there were seasons of color. Each season had its own group of colors: autumn was gold, brown, rust; spring was pink, light blue and yellow. I was autumn. It is true that I do look better in the autumn shades. But I always thought the whole thing was simply an excuse to have fashion parties and get women to spend money, so I didn’t give it much credence.

Some colors are considered hot, and some are cold. Red and yellow are hot, blue and green cold. When I wear a color, they all feel exactly the same to me, so I don’t know why some are hot and some are cold. It must be that they simply look cold or hot.

Purple is unusual because it is both hot and cold. I thought only a hot fudge sundae could be hot and cold at the same time, or apple pie alamode. According to what I have read, though, it is because true purple is a blend of red and blue. But almost all colors are a mixture of something or another.

Purple is supposed to be the color of royalty. Monarchs wore purple robes. Royal purple is rather a bright, but there are also paler colors of purple, like lavender or lilac. I don’t wear any of them. I suppose I have no hope of being a descendant of a royal ancestor. No point doing my genealogy. With my aversion to purple, it more likely would turn up some ancestor I would rather not claim.

There are many weird associations with colors. Pink is for girls, blue for boys. They say we gender stereotype children by the way we dress them. If you blended pink and blue, you would come with – you guessed it – purple. Purple is not associated with gender; it is worn by both sexes. If we actually want a gender-neutral color, we should dress our children in purple.

Many redheads are afraid to wear purple because they think it clashes with their hair. However, I have a friend whose hair is auburn. She says purple is her favorite color. She wears it all the time. It looks okay on her, so why would it not look good on me?

I was looking at a fashion catalog the other day and saw a pretty blouse in a purple print. As luck would have it, it only came in purple. It was a really pretty blouse though. I feel myself starting to weaken. Maybe it is time to take the purple plunge. If I bought something purple, would I wear it, or would it simply hang in the closet because I don’t like purple? One of these days maybe I will buy something purple.

The Red Hat Society ladies think it is okay to wear purple when you are old, even with a red hat. I can’t really remember, but I have a feeling that purple may be for the winter season of color. Maybe I’m just not ready to admit that I’m old enough to wear purple.

I prefer to think that my mother never dressed me in purple as a child, and now I have the idea that I cannot wear it. It must be because it clashes with my hair or because I have no royal blood. My color season could not possibly have changed from autumn to winter.

I can’t wear purple because I am way too young. Besides, I have this thing about purple. It does not look good on me.

Copyright 2012 Sheila Moss

Posted in Fashion, Humor | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Anatomy of a Prat Fall

Posted on February 17, 2022 by Sheila Moss

In the days of vaudeville, physical comedy was considered funny, and comics would “accidentally-on-purpose” fall for the comic effect. However, falling down is only funny when the person gets back up.

A few years ago, I had a very rough day. I was going to work that morning the same as always. There was a street between the parking garage and the building where I worked that I hated crossing, even though there was a streetlight, a cross walk, and even a pedestrian light.

The local bus station was on that same corner and buses were constantly pulling out and turning right on red. Some of them didn’t seem to know that pedestrians in a cross walk have the right of way, or else they got bonus bucks for hitting people.

The city streets were rough with cracks and patches in the asphalt that you had to walk around while watching for cars that might not stop, buses turning the corner and making sure that the pedestrian walk light was on green.

What this is all leading up to, as you may have guessed from the title, is the prat fall. It was not for the comic effect, believe me. The only good part was that I made it across the street before my grand performance or I probably would not be here to talk about it.

I thought I was being careful, but somehow, I managed to stumble on a crack and before I knew what was happening, the sidewalk was coming up to slap me in the face.

“Yikes,” I thought, as I lay on the sidewalk looking at the concrete. “I’ve fallen down.”

I sat up on the sidewalk and waited for laughter and applause. Crashing with a city sidewalk isn’t funny, apparently, as no one was laughing. My purse and lunch bag had gone one direction and my Big Bubba coffee cup the other. Coffee was running all over the sidewalk – not that I cared about coffee at that point.

When something like this happens in the city, people pretend that they don’t see you. They probably think you are drunk or on drugs and do not want to get involved.

Luckily for me, however, a kind man stopped. I think he was a street person.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

“I think so,” I replied. I couldn’t half see as my glasses were knocked lopsided. I didn’t know if I could get up or not. Too bad no one made a video. My act would go viral on YouTube.

The man was still standing there. He seemed not to know what to do.

“Would you mind helping me get up?” I asked.

He held out his arm and, I was able to stand up, actually easier than I expected.

“I’m okay,” I lied, picking up my purse and lunch bag. I wondered if he liked my comedy act, but I was too rattled for polite conversation.

“Don’t forget your coffee, mum,” said the man, still trying to be helpful but not knowing how.

I thanked him and went on to my office, where I could set down and check out the damage. I straightened out my lopsided glasses the best I could. One of the lenses was badly scratched from hitting the concrete and I would need new glasses.

I decided I was going to live. If breaking my glasses is the worst thing that happened, I could consider myself lucky.

I called Honey on the phone for sympathy. “Do you need to go the emergency room?” he asked.

“I guess I’m okay.” I said, holding an ice pack on my face, hoping I would not get a black eye.

So, that was my vaudeville routine.

Some people might say that a prat fall is supposed to be done by falling backwards on your bottom, which goes to show, I can’t even fall down the right way.

After that, I decided that I would stick to trying to write humor instead of performing it.

Copyright 2012 Sheila Moss
Edited 2022

Posted in Humor, Work Humor | Tagged , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Pretty in Pink

Posted on February 14, 2022 by Sheila Moss

“Peasants,” I thought as I looked down on the rest of the world.

It hadn’t been that long since I was in that category myself, but today I was up on my pedicure throne in the nail shop, the lap of luxury, where I was treating myself to a much needed pedicure. I had promised myself this particular episode six months ago and now I was finally collecting.

You see, back last summer I lost a toenail. I won’t go into the gruesome details of what is now ancient history. Suffice it to say, it has been a long road to recovery as toenails grow much slower than fingernails.

My feet were so ugly all summer that I had to keep them hidden in heavy shoes — right after I had purchased several pairs of new summer sandals too. Of all the narcissistic luck.  I tried to cover the offending toe by employing the use of a band-aid. There was no use. My feet were just plain ugly. Ugly feet do absolutely nothing for a woman’s self-esteem.

I counted the days, weeks, months until the faint appearance of the regrowing nail. I had almost decided that it was gone forever, and my toe would be forever naked. When it finally began to grow, I promised myself that I would treat my feet to a professional pedicure when it grew back.

Now, at last, it was time.

“I really needed this,” I said to the lady in the next pedicure chair as I sank back and let my feet soak in the blue waters of the foot spa.

“I usually do my own,” she confessed, “But I felt lazy this time.”

I didn’t go into my personal situation at this point, but just closed by eyes and enjoyed the luxurious soak.

At last, the pedicurist was ready to work on me, trimming, filing, oiling. “Oh my, so this is how the filthy rich live,” I though, as she applied lotion and massaged my feet. I could get used to this.

“You like?” she asked. How did she know?

The best manicure people seem to speak only enough English to get by. And her English was far superior to my non-existent foreign language ability.

Apparently, she was used to non-verbal instructions and customers who use sign language. I pointed to the bright pink polish I had chosen for my nails, the color in my dreams for the past six months.  She nodded.

Quickly and skillfully, she applied the polish, and I was ready for the manicurist’s table. Might as well get the works while I’m here.

The entire process was repeated to my hands, with a few modifications. When finished, I limped to the drying table, taking my time so the wet polish would not get messed up.

At last, I was finished. I rolled down my pants legs, put my shoes back on, and floated out the door.

Every once in a while, I have to kick off my shoes and sneak a peek at my pretty pink toenails, just to be sure they are still there in their rosy glory.

I only wish it was summer so I could wear sandals and show off my toes.

I might splurge and do this again sometime. Now that my feet are in better shape, I could do it myself. But that is for the peasants. Those of us in the temporary social elite prefer to let other do our toes. Let’s just consider it an investment in well-being and mental health.

I just looked and they are still pretty in pink. Everyone deserves an ego trip once in a while.

Copyright 2012 Sheila Moss

Posted in Fashion, Humor | Tagged , , , , , , | 6 Comments

It’s a Social Media World

Posted on February 11, 2022 by Sheila Moss

According to rapidly changing statistics, about 3.9 billion people or 81% of Americans use Facebook. Imagine that 3.9 billion people posting pictures of their cats and telling others where they are, what they are doing, what they are eating, and what kind of day they are having, or wish they were having.

It’s positively mind boggling isn’t it – not only the amount of time we while away, but the amount of useless information we generate. Where does it all go? Probably to a server somewhere in cyberspace that will not even save it after we took time to write it. Sometimes I think that the world could end, and no one would notice until someone posted about it on Facebook.

Reality is no longer real. Virtual reality is more actual than bona fide reality.

In the world of social media, we are known by the comments we LIKE. We can LIKE something without having to give a reason. You like it just because you like it. You don’t have to know why. No logic, no proof, no reasoning, and no supporting evidence – just because.

And if you really like it, you can click SHARE and let all your friends like it too. You can COMMENT if you really must, but if you don’t, it doesn’t matter. The only important thing is how many LIKES a post gets and how many times it is reposted.

Notice that LIKE has become a noun now. We get and give likes. What a world. My high school English teacher is probably better off dead because this would kill her.

We can FRIEND someone if we are interested in what they have to say. Friend is no longer a noun, it is now a verb. Words seem to be getting trickier than ever in the social media world of virtual reality. You can’t even trust parts of speech.

What did we do with our time before Facebook? Well, there were chat boards, emails, newsgroups, and bulletin boards. Remember? There still are, and numerous other social media sites, some also owned by Facebook, or Meta, as they now call themselves.

Business spends millions putting LIKE, SHARE and TWEET buttons on websites to get in on the action. 3.9 billion people can’t be wrong. That number of potential customers have them salivating on the screen.

When I went to my first computer class for Windows 95, (Yes – back in the Dark Ages) the instructor saved email training until last. We eventually found out why. As soon as people started sending email to each other, the class erupted in total chaos. People sent an email and jumped up to run to another computer to see if it arrived. There is something thrilling about electronic communication.

We can FRIEND everyone we know, everyone we have ever known, and everyone we expect to ever know. Does anyone actually have 5000 people they can call friends – other than on social media? Does anyone need 5000 friends reading about their life and likes? Don’t we have enough trivia in our lives to keep us busy without reading the mundane details of someone else’s life?

The answer is apparently “NO!” Would life go on if we didn’t know everything about everything?

Some people have refused to be seduced by social media. They insist on actually interacting face-to-face with each other. Imagine that! These people are technical dinosaurs. They will die off soon and become extinct. We can read about it on Facebook. Don’t worry. We are safe in our virtual world, staying in touch while being out of touch.

It’s a social media world, people. If you enjoyed this article, please LIKE it, better yet, COMMENT on it, and best of all, SHARE it so other people can LIKE it too.

Copyright 2012 Sheila Moss
Updated 2022





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The Winter Storm that Wasn’t

Posted on February 4, 2022 by Sheila Moss

I suppose I should be thankful that we dodged the bullet and did not get the ice storm that hit much of the South from Texas to Kentucky.

I am thankful, but I am not thankful for all the panic created by media and especially TV weather.

They seemed so certain. The ice was coming. It would be here the next day. They even told us the time that it would arrive.

So, what do you do? In spite of the many times weather is predicted incorrectly, can you afford to just ignore the dire predictions and risk getting caught unprepared?

Somehow, I just had a gut feeling that it wasn’t going to happen. But what do my guts know about weather fronts? My arthritic knees are better at predicting weather, but even they cannot be trusted as they sometimes hurt for no reason at all.

Schools were closed for the day. Surely if schools are closed there must be something to it.

We saw all the pictures on TV of what havoc the winter storm was creating elsewhere. It was awful. Roads, trees, power lines coated with a thick layer of ice. Tree limbs cracked and fell behind the TV reporters. Power lines were down; there was no electricity or heat. People were stuck on the highways.

How can you ignore predictions with the weather people jumping up and down, pointing to maps, and screaming that it is coming?

The road crews salted the streets. Surely if they were using the precious salt supply, the ice was coming.

Problem is, we are right on the border of where the weather fronts usually go. We don’t get rain and we don’t get snow. Right on the border is where you get ice. And we remember the big ice storms that we’ve had in the not-that-distant past.

So, people make plans to stay home from work. With the ice, they don’t want to get caught downtown and have to spend hour after hour in traffic trying to get home.

Surely with everyone staying home from work, the ice is coming. We stocked up on bread and milk and snacks. I don’t know why, but it seems to be a southern tradition to stock up on food prior to a big storm. As you can imagine, grocery stores love winter storms.

We watched the weather on TV and on the Internet and braced ourselves for the big storm. We bit our fingernails and worried about whether we would have electricity and whether we would be able to get to work.

We watched and worried. Surely with all the grocery stores sold out of bread and milk, the storm was coming.

At seven o’clock, it started, a wintery mix of rain, sleet, and snow,

At 8:00 it was over.

That’s it? One hour and its over? They have got to be kidding. They closed the school, salted the roads, and created general panic over nothing? Again? What little bit of ice we had melted in two minutes.

Newspapers ran picture of the big ice storms in 94 and 97. They didn’t have anything else to run. TV stations sent reporter north to Kentucky or west to Memphis to report on the ice that fell there. They didn’t have anything here to cover.

And so, we dodged the bullet. I should be glad. I am. It’s not that I’m ungrateful. Maybe prayer and worry work better that weather dances. I don’t know.

And I don’t know what the explanations were for why the weather front went north of us instead of making a direct hit. I didn’t watch TV.

Maybe my guts know more about weather than I thought they did.

Copyright 2009 Sheila Moss
Updated

Posted in Humor, Rants, Weather | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Explaining the Winter Olympics

Posted on February 3, 2022 by Sheila Moss

This is a reblog of an article on the Winter Olympic Games that begin today 6:55 a.m. ET. Except for the players, I doubt there has been much change except a little more hype and a lot more grumbling. I doubt most of us will watch much of it, except for the ice skaters. Prove me wrong.
[NOTE: If full article fails to load, use the search feature to search on “Olympics” or try this link —
https://humorcolumnistblog.com/2018/02/08/explaining-the-winter-olympics/ ]

Sheila Moss's avatarHumor Columnist Blog

daniel-frank-223182 Photo by Daniel Frank on Unsplash

Are you watching the winter Olympics on TV? There are sport disciplines in seven sports and it seems that NBC is determined to cover them all. Medals are up for grabs. We will become intimate with many sports, such as, the luge, half-pipe, and slalom, some of which we try to forget even exist except in the Olympics.

As a public service, I will attempt to explain some of the key events.

First, we will talk about the sliding events. I’m sure there is a skill involved in these sports, but it is difficult to know what it is. Take the luge; please take the luge. This involves lying on a sled and sliding down an ice-covered chute, sort of like a water slide park in winter. Flip the luge over, and you have the skeleton, riders going down the icy chute headfirst at…

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Festival of the Moon

Posted on January 31, 2022 by Sheila Moss

I received an email from China regarding a necklace that I had ordered. “So, sorry,” said the email from Chang. “Cannot ship item for one week. It is National Holiday in China and postal service is closed.”

“That is okay,” I replied, “I will be out of town for a couple weeks anyhow.

“Honey and I had been planning to go on trip with my sister and her husband. If Chang sent the package certified mail, I probably wouldn’t be here to sign for it anyhow.

When you go on a trip with my sister, all you have to do is make the plane reservations and have a place to stay. She knows everything there is to see, has maps and guides, and plans an itinerary. She had also sent me an email saying, “Now that my party is over with, I can concentrate on getting ready for our trip.

She puts a lot of effort into organizing. Her party theme was “A Night to Remember.” Refreshments included star-shaped cookies, and Moon Pies. She recorded background music about the night, the stars and the moon, like “Mr. Sandman” and “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” Guests were asked to wear pajamas.

But getting back to Chan and the Chinese holiday, “What holiday could it be?” I wondered. As it turned out, I didn’t have to worry for long. I didn’t even have to look it up. The stars must have been in alignment because in another amazing coincidence, a friend and fellow writer wrote a column about the holiday.

It is an ancient Chinese tradition called Festival of the Moon. The Chinese celebrate it by setting outside, looking at the moon and eating a special cake called “Moon Cake” that is very expensive and made especially for this occasion.

There is a Chinese legend to explain their odd behavior. Once upon a time long, long ago, a Chinese man saved the world from an attack by firebirds, and a rabbit popped out of a hat and gave him a pill for immortality as a reward.

Being a man, he put off taking the pill, just like he had been putting off doing all the other items on his honey-do list. So his wife gave up and decided she would swallow the pill for him. When he found the pill gone, he became very angry with his wife and said, “To the moon, Alice” or something similar in Chinese. So, Alice flew to the moon where it was rumored there was a rabbit with a pill to replace the one she ate. Unfortunately, rabbits on the moon had only jellybeans.

I hope my readers will forgive me for elaborating the facts of the legend, but what columnist knows how to explain firebirds that are not made by Pontiac and drug-dealing rabbits?

I don’t suppose the Chinese wear their pajamas to the moon festival like my sister did at her party, but it might add to the festivity. I have heard that beautiful silk pajamas are found in China.

I have noticed that the moon is full and bright orange. I do not drink hot tea but like my tea with ice, lemon and a lot of sugar. I hope iced tea will be okay if I decide to celebrate the Festival of the Moon.

I do not have a recipe for the special moon cake that I am supposed to make. We do have an abundance of Moon Pies in the South. Do you suppose it would be okay to use them instead?

If you see me outside in my pajamas drinking sweet tea and eating a Moon Pie, please do not think the drug-dealing rabbit is passing out pills. It will either be one of my sister’s parties, or else I will be celebrating a belated Festival of the Moon.

Copyright 2012 Sheila Moss

Posted in Holidays, Humor | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

A Jaded Week

Posted on January 27, 2022 by Sheila Moss


I don’t know how to describe it. It is green, greener than spinach, greener than a grass, greener than the eyes of a cat. It is GREEN, as green as jello. Yes, that’s it, jello. The necklace is treated jade that is dyed and heated to intensify the color. The thing almost glows in the dark.

Somehow my mind was drawn to jade. I looked at jade, read about jade, dreamed of jade and envied jade. I think it is because I came across a jade necklace that I bought some time ago, but seldom, if ever, wear because is too green.

If I could add a pretty pendant and maybe break up the green with beads of another color, it might look better. I don’t usually obsess about something as foolish as a piece of costume jewelry, but somehow these beads were calling out for attention.

Jade is an ancient gemstone, treasured by many civilizations, but especially the Chinese. Early civilizations used it to make knives that were stronger than steel. Today we prefer to adorn ourselves with it. Jade is a gemstone of mystery and intrigue.

There are actually two different types of stone that are called jade, but both look similar. We think of jade as green, but it can come in many shades and colors of white, yellow, pink, and red. Old jade was found in China. Today, most of it comes from Burma.

To make my obsession worse, one of my co-workers came in talking about a necklace one of our other colleagues had worn. Did you see that jade necklace she had on? It was red.

Did she say jade? I was green with envy.

Once again I was fixated on jade like a prospector after gold. But I don’t want red jade – my blood is green. I couldn’t wait to go shopping. I fed my craving on eBay. After looking at jade until my eyeballs were avocado, I finally selected an amulet to add to my necklace.

Jade is said to bring fortune and good luck. It seems to only bring me bad luck. I’m spending all my time shopping for it on eBay instead of doing anything useful.

I found out that the red necklace came from Steinmart, of all places. Now I have to go to Steinmart and see what else they have. It couldn’t be quality jade if it came from Steinmart. It was probably heat treated like my unnaturally green necklace. Heating lowers quality but is frequently used to make red jade.

I decided that I wanted untreated jade. I could work over the old green necklace, but I also wanted a new one. I didn’t know exactly what I wanted, but I would know the right necklace when I saw it. While there is nothing wrong with lesser quality jade, treating makes it lose its value as a gemstone.

So, here I am again shopping on eBay for jade. If it can be found anywhere, it is on the Internet. If it isn’t on the Internet, it doesn’t exist. Everything is on the Internet.

Fortunately, or unfortunately, when you look, you find. I found this gorgeous necklace. I tried to pass by it and keep looking, but I kept going back. This was my necklace. I felt the passion. So, I blew my PayPal account balance and ordered the thing. I can’t wait until it comes from China.

I think I’m okay now. My eyeballs are back to normal and I haven’t looked at jade for several days. I do still plan to go to Steinmart this weekend, just to check, of course.

Copyright 2012 Sheila Moss

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