Body acceptance and 'unacceptable' bodies.

Before I start, I just want to point out that societal standards and the idea that there are acceptable bodies and unacceptable bodies are bullshit.  Complete, grass-fed bullshit.

That being said, these ideas and standards exist, and it is naive to say societal standards are bullshit so you should just ignore them and feel good about yourself.  Context matters and there is only so far you can go in 'ignoring standards'.

I include this caveat mostly to make clear that when I speak of acceptable and unacceptable bodies, I mean by societal standards and definitely not my own.  Had I my druthers, we wouldn't be having this conversation at all, because there'd be no concept of a body that was unacceptable.

The other day I read a post on my Facebook feed, lauding Australian 'plus-sized' model Robyn Lawley for posting a number of un-retouched, un-airbrushed bikini pictures in the name of body acceptance.

I'm not even going to get into discussing how ludicrous the modelling industry's idea of plus-sized is.  Most of the average-sized women I know are considered too large for plus-sized modelling.

Yup.  Plus-sized.  Okay, then.

First off, I want to say, on a personal level, hats off to you, Robyn Lawley.  Body insecurity can be an issue for anyone of any size and shape and putting yourself out there like that can be a great act of bravery.  I applaud you for calling out the practice of PhotoShopping and airbrushing that gives women even more unrealistic standards to try and live up to.  You, along with so many other women, live within the context of a capitalistic system where industries make money off of tearing down the self-esteem of women, in a never-ending quest to sell us more make-up, more diets, more surgeries and more ways to hate our bodies for being less than utter perfection.

So, yes.  On a personal level, a big thumbs up for you, Robin Lawley.

All that being said, I just wish that the body acceptance movement would focus more on 'unacceptable' bodies.  Practising body acceptance, while a generally good thing, is a lot easier when you live in a body that falls near the "most acceptable" end of the spectrum.  Having a slender, white, youthful women preach body acceptance leaves me feeling pretty underwhelmed.

A woman like Robyn Lawley can post online a picture of herself, flaws and all, and will most likely receive accolades and support and comments to the effect of how beautiful she already is.  Granted, you always get a few assholes that will pick apart her appearance.

I have to wonder.. what if someone like myself, at 200+ lbs, stretch-marked, scarred, flabby, posted the same picture in my own bikini (which I have, because fuck societal standards)?  Mockery, cries of "No one wants to see that!", fake concern for my health and possibly threats of violence because the internet is like that.

Body acceptance should be applicable to all bodies, not just acceptable bodies.  Black bodies, brown bodies, short bodies, fat bodies, disabled bodies, old bodies, scarred bodies, tattooed bodies, trans bodies.  All ethnicities, all genders.

We need to celebrate ALL bodies.

I don't know cars but I can read an invoice, or, Why I Won't go to Pro Oil Change again

I'm really starting to wonder how I keep running into service companies that don't seem to understand that if you give someone a price on something, that should actually be what they pay.  Hell, just being relatively accurate would be great.   In the general ballpark, even. Whatever.

So, in preparation for an upcoming big-ass road trip, and in the name of general automotive maintenance, I decided to get my car's oil changed on my lunch break.  I've had friends offer to do my oil changes and sometimes I take them up on that but mostly I get lazy and impatient and end up going to a 10-min oil change place.  Usually Midas, but they are admittedly a bit pricey, especially when you start treating your motor-baby to synthetic oils.  Generally in the $90 range for a full-synthetic package.

So I decided to try a different place this time.  Pro Oil Change opened a franchaise near downtown about a year ago and lo and behold, they also had a ten-dollar-off coupon on their website and a claim to a 12-minute drive-through service, which seemed handy considering I get a half an hour for lunch.

Ka-ching.

Lunch time rolled around and I drove down to see what the pricing was like.  I asked the senior mechanic guy about pricing and if they did synthetic and he told me a full-synthetic oil change was 60 bucks plus tax.  I asked if the coupon was valid with that package and he said sure so I gave him my keys and hunkered down with one of the limited magazine offerings.

On a side note:  How much sense does it really make to have hot rod and other automotive magazines in a 10-minute oil change place?  Anyone interested enough in cars to want to read about them in magazines are probably doing their own oil changes.

But I digress.

Gripe Number One:  I waited a lot longer than twelve minutes.  I guess they were short-staffed, but I still feel the need to include that to give the fullest picture of my overall shitty experience dealing with this particular company.

Gripe Number Two:  My air filter needs changing, apparently.  I was offered a new one for 29.99 installed.  Now, I could be mistaken, but I have bought one of these before and I don't remember it being near thirty bucks.  And I don't know if you've ever seen where the air filter on a PT Cruiser sits, but a monkey could probably change it.  Hell, I'm fairly confident I could change it, and I'm sure there are monkeys with better automotive knowledge than I have.

Now, these first two gripes, I would let slide.  People get swamped, and understaffed.  Shit happens.  People are in the business to make money so they are going to try and upsell.  And honestly, my air filter DOES need changing.

However...

Gripe Number Three:  When I got the invoice, I saw that I had been charged 38.99 plus tax for service and 37.00 for the oil filter and about 5 liters of synthetic oil. 5W-30.

All told it comes to about $85 bucks after the tax.  After I had been told $60+

(for those unfamiliar with HST, the Ontario rate is 13% so after my coupon was applied, I should have been looking at about $58 bucks total)

I pointed out the discrepancy and was told that ".. that's how the computer rings it up.. you see, it's this much for the service and then this much for your oil."

To which I replied "I see that, but you told me it would be sixty dollars, not over seventy-five."  To which he again said that it was the way it comes up in the computer.

Once again, I reiterated that I was told $60 and that the price card I was shown when I came in also said $60 for the package.  If it comes up as over $75 on the computer, then that is what it should say on the price card.  That is what I *should* have been told when I asked about pricing.

I was also told that I needed to account for the tax.  Which pissed me off, because - as I pointed out on the computer screen - the price BEFORE tax was still fifteen bucks more than the price I was told.

The guy apologizes and says that he's run into this problem before and has told his boss about it a couple of times now.  I told him I'm not surprised he's had problems with customers over it because it's a shitty, dishonest way to do business.

I also told him that as a first-time customer this was a crappy first impression and that I felt I had been ripped off.  I agreed to let them do the oil change under false pretences, believing that I would be paying one price, and then being charged more after the fact.

He then apologized and offered to knock 15 bucks off the price, without the coupon.  He gave me the coupon back and said I could use it again the next time I was in.  I scoffed and told him to keep the coupon as I would not be returning.  I also suggested that he pass that message along to the company owner, once again expressing my opinion that theirs was a shitty, crooked way of doing business.

So yeah.  Will not be going back there.  I had full intention of going in this morning and speaking to the manager face to face, but... life.

For now, this will need to serve as my strongly worded letter and my warning to others who may be tempted as I was.. don't bother.  

Whatcha got in that bag, Lady?

My co-workers crack me up sometimes.

This conversation happened this afternoon.

My co-worker who we will call CA (because no one will figure it out) is cleaning her keyboard with one of those compressed-air cans.

Me: I need to do that too.  My keyboard is gross.

(My keyboard is gross.  I'm not lying.)

CA: Just fart on it.  Fart through a straw.

(We're classy)

Me: I'm pretty sure that would result in a much bigger, much more unpleasant mess in my keyboard.

CA: You can't do that, can you? That's right, you can't!

Me: I can't what? Fart?

CA: Yeah, because you got the [ostomy] bag.  Right?  I thought you couldn't fart anymore.

Me: I never got the bag.  Didn't I tell you that?  About a week before my surgery the doctor decided they could save my rectum so they just attached it to the small intestine.  I swore I told you that.

CA: I didn't know.  I thought you had the bag.

Other members of the Grey Carpet Area (hereby known as the GCA): Yeah, we knew.

Me: Yeah, no ostomy. Everything works about 90% the same as before.

CA: Oh jeez! I thought you had the other thing done, 'cause you always had that little red bag with you.

This red bag. From my awesome friend Sammi. Because Sammi is awesome.

CA: You're always taking it into the bathroom with you and everywhere you go.

Me:... that's my purse.  That's why it's with me all the time. Sometimes I'm on my period and need a pad and sometimes I just want to put on some lipstick.

CA: Holy shit! You're kidding me!

Me: (grabs purse and opens it) See?  No shit in here.  Well, okay, there's a lot of shit in here.  But no feces.

Me: That being said, if it ever does come down to an ostomy bag, I'd totally be into a Wonder Woman design.

(Fun Fact:  These exist.  Thanks for the link, SB!)

GCA: *hysterical laughter and smart ass comments.. including something along the lines of "Go for the Wonder Woman bag, because you don't wanna shit in a Gucci."*

CA:  Oh my god.  OH MY GOD.  The other day, when you dropped the plant..!¹  I was all worried because you left your bag on the floor next to all the dirt.. and you were nowhere near it.  I was panicking thinking something horrible happened to you, because you weren't with your bag!  That's why I picked it up and brushed it off and was all worried about getting it back to you!

(I had gone to get a broom. See footnote.)

Me:  I thought you were just being nice!

At this point, I have tears running down my cheeks, I am laughing so hard.  People are coming in from other departments to see what is going on and why we are laughing about pooh-bags and shitting in Gucci.

This must have been especially confusing to anyone who has joined our department since last January. I can kind of understand the confusion, because in all fairness, back when I was first diagnosed with colitis at the tender age of 18 and had the dreaded words "colostomy bag" uttered to me, I thought it would look kind of like a fanny pack.  At this purse, with its shoulder strap, does kind of sit over my hip, where an ostomy bag might go.

It's been a while since I've laughed that hard.  Cancer is bullshit, but poop jokes never get old.

---

¹The other day, coming into work, I attempted to carry two large spider plants, my tote bag, my purse and a coffee into the building in one trip and succeeded in dumping one of the plants upside down on the floor.  Considering I was carrying my travel mug in my cleavage, things could have gone much worse.

The continuing saga of the so-called penis table

I have what some may call irrational and so may call perfectly rational hatred for MDF (also known as chip board) furniture.  I have a shit ton of it in my house, but I absolutely loathe it.  

Thing is, it's inexpensive and light and usually comes ready to assemble.  Ergo, I have a ton of this crap in my house.  Book shelves, dressers, desks etc.  

But I dream of wood.  Real wood furniture.  I dream of eventually replacing every piece of cheap, shitty, Walmart/Canadian Tire etc prefab crap with oak, or maple or pine.  

A few years ago some friends of mine were moving out-of-country an as such, had divested themselves of most of their furniture.  By the time they their going away party, they were down to a coffee table set and a couch, both of which were slated for the dumpster the next day.

It was a few hours into the night that I realized that here was a rather nice wood coffee table set, that was just going to be thrown in the garbage without my intervention.  I asked my friends if the would mind if I took it instead and they quite were agreeable to this arrangement.

There was one small catch.

Prior to my "hey, this is some pretty decent shit" revelation, our host had presented the partygoers with a few Sharpies with which to sign their well wishes on the last of the furniture before it made its way to the dumpster.

Do you know happens when you combine an apartment full of revellers and a batch of Sharpie markers?

Penises.

Penises on your new coffee table set.

So many penises.  And boobs.  And penises with boobs.  Some sort of multi-headed penis hydra.  And a penis palm-tree.

There was even a Cock Ness Monster.  I kid you not.

Nonetheless I was determined.  With help, I dismantled and fit the set into my car, then took it home and hid it in the shed away from my children's impressionable view until I could find some time to strip and refinish it.

Three years later, I'm finally getting around to this project of mine, mainly because I dislike my current coffee table and I got tired of hemming and hawing about whether or not I was actually going to get around to refinishing the damned thing.

It's slow going.  I started off using a paint/varnish thinner but after multiple chemicals burns and some kind of reaction to my nitrile gloves that caused my hands to heat up and stiffen in an alarming manner, I decided that paint stripper was fucking bullshit and sought out a heat gun, which I was able to borrow from a friend and former co worker.

What a difference.  I've only burned myself bad enough to leave a mark once (although I've probably singed off some leg and arm hair with flying paint chips), and the gun goes through the paint and varnish much faster than the paint stripper did.

I am hoping to at least have the whole set stripped, if not sanded, by the end of the summer.  But that is what I have been up to.  

Work in progress..