By Dorothy Rosby

You can’t tell by looking at my wrapping, but I was once a professional gift wrapper. Sort of. When I was a teenager, I worked at a hardware store in my hometown, Buffalo, South Dakota. Buffalo had a population of around 350 people and was many miles from a department store.

Also it was before online shopping—about a hundred years before online shopping. So the hardware store carried a variety of housewares, toys and other items that were often purchased for gift giving. We also had a fabulous selection of wrapping paper and bows but only a few people on staff who could really do them justice. I wasn’t one of them.

Practice should make perfect and I wrapped many gifts, but they always had those big bulges on the sides of the package where the paper comes together—like I accidentally wrapped a hammer in there, which I may have done once or twice. Even today I turn a gift on its side and put a big bow on the lump to cover it up.

But I can finally feel good about my wrapping, and not because it’s gotten better. Recently I read about several studies suggesting attractive gift wrapping can backfire by leading the receiver to anticipate an equally attractive gift. That means when they open your beautifully wrapped package and find a boiled egg slicer or a hair removal device, they’re bound to be disappointed. I guess they might be anyway. But researchers say fancy wrapping can even dampen the enthusiasm of someone receiving a nice gift.

Meanwhile, mediocre wrapping can enhance the joy of receiving any gift because it doesn’t build up expectations—though I don’t think anything could enhance the joy of receiving a hair remover or an egg slicer.

 It makes sense really. Imagine that a month before Christmas you receive a gift that’s been professionally wrapped in gold metallic wrapping paper with a red satin ribbon and a giant bow. You see it under your tree every day and you can’t help imagining all the wonderful things that could be in that package. A new laptop? A small drone? A couple of hundred-dollar bills and a rock to add weight to the package? You can’t wait for Christmas!

 Finally, it’s time. You tear into the package prepared to be wowed, and you find…a bathroom scale. Naturally you’re disappointed.

If these studies had been done back when I was a professional gift wrapper it would have saved me a lot of embarrassment. I could have handed my customers their lumpy packages and said, “If your girlfriend is disappointed that you bought her mixing bowls for Christmas, don’t blame me.”

According to one researcher there’s an exception to the gift wrap rule, and that’s when the value of your gift isn’t obvious. For example, let’s say you’re giving your teenager the $1.3 million Diamond Crypto Smartphone. If she thinks the diamonds are cubic zirconia she might carelessly misplace her phone under her bed or accidentally throw it in with the dirty laundry. In order to signal that the gift is valuable, you should definitely have it professionally wrapped. You should also definitely have your head examined.

For gifts valued at less than $1.3 million dollars, consider more humble wrapping. You could wrap your gift in newspaper—being careful to avoid the obituary page. Or wrap it in brown paper and tie it up with string while humming a verse of “My Favorite Things.” You could even make the wrapping part of the gift. For example, use a tea towel to wrap a package of kitchen sponges.

But my personal favorite is the gift bag. Gift bags are attractive but not so much that they raise my expectations when I receive one. They don’t require any special wrapping skill when I reuse them later. And they make it easy for me to peek.

Dorothy Rosby is a blogger and humor columnist whose column appears regularly in publications throughout the West and Midwest. She’s the author of four books of humorous essays all available locally at Mitzi’s Books in Rapid City and on Amazon. 

Most Thanksgivings, you’ll find my husband and one of my brothers at our dinner table gnawing on turkey legs like a couple of peasants at a renaissance festival. And he never said so, but I suspected my spouse considered it a silver lining of the pandemic that he’d have both drumsticks to himself on Thanksgiving 2020.

Even though we were going to be alone for the holiday he’d been adamant that we have the whole feast, so I’d selected the smallest turkey I could find. On Thanksgiving morning he began to prepare it as he does every year. I was pondering how quiet our holiday was compared to previous years, when I heard frantic hollering from the kitchen. “There’s no legs…no wings…no pop-up thing.” I rushed to the kitchen to discover that someone had indeed stolen our turkey’s appendages. It was barbaric.

Maybe not. A glance at the package revealed there’d been no “fowl” play after all. I hadn’t purchased a small turkey. I’d brought home a large turkey breast.

My husband looked downright betrayed. I was disappointed too. We both think turkeys would be better if they were made up entirely of dark meat. We had none of that and it was my fault. I’d have been sent to my room without dinner if it wasn’t my job to make everything else.

It’s hard to believe it’s possible, but things went downhill from there. My husband assumed that the small bag that came with our turkey contained giblets. It didn’t. It was a packet of gravy and it sprayed the kitchen when he tore it open.

And he’d been right about there being no pop-up temperature indicator in our turkey breast. Of course, those are pointless if the turkey doesn’t cook, but I’m getting ahead of myself.

We had to eat something so my normally mild-mannered spouse jammed the turkey breast into the oven unceremoniously and left the kitchen to grieve. I set about making the potatoes, green beans and stuffing—the boxed kind that doesn’t require contact with a turkey. Good thing. We got so hungry we gobbled it up later as an appetizer.

I may have been a little preoccupied thinking about our paltry poultry because I didn’t notice that something was missing in my kitchen: the aroma of roasting turkey. When I checked the turkey it was as cold as my darling’s heart at the moment.

It’s possible that in the confusion, I’d bumped the switch and turned the oven off. That’s easy to do with our oven. But I prefer to think he forgot to turn it on in the first place because that makes us even.

Dorothy Rosby is a blogger and humor columnist whose work appears regularly in publications throughout the West and Midwest. She’s the author of four books of humorous essays all available locally at Mitzi’s Books and on Amazon. 

October is National Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Naturally that makes me think back fondly to my first mammogram many years ago—the same way one might think back fondly to their first root canal.

Seriously though, thanks to my first very kind and efficient mammogram technician, I do not fear the mammogram. I hate it, but I don’t fear it. And I continue to have them faithfully whenever the calendar and the latest medical advice suggest. I think that makes that first technician a smashing success. Sorry.

To help dispel any fears you may have about the procedure, I’m going to walk you through my first experience. I was already tense when I arrived, so I almost canceled when the receptionist asked for an emergency contact. I hated to think what sort of emergency there could be during a mammogram.

I felt better when she asked if I had implants. I asked her if I really looked like I have implants. But she said she had to ask everyone that.

After filling out my paperwork, I met the woman who would be doing the procedure. Just an aside here. I’ve had a few mammograms since that first one. And each time I’ve been helped by very caring technicians. It seems like the sort of job bullies would apply for—and men. But I’ve met neither at what I, being a journalist, now refer to affectionately as “the Press Club.”

Anyway, the technician gave me a little poncho to cover myself as well as a wipe to remove my deodorant. I didn’t think this was the kind of experience I should go through without deodorant. But she said it could show up on the pictures and she didn’t think I’d want to do retakes.

Then she explained what she was going to do, which was essentially flatten my bosom in a giant vice, though she didn’t put it like that. She remained determined, but reassuring throughout this procedure despite my whimpering and the fact that I wasn’t wearing deodorant.

She never once said, “Don’t be a baby,” or “Is that all you’ve got?” She was gentle and sympathetic but that didn’t stop her from doing what she had to do. And what she had to do was put my breast in the vice, tighten it, then go out for coffee.

I’m joking! She was actually very quick. I only had time for two worries. First would I faint? I reassured myself that I probably wouldn’t. And even if I did, I couldn’t very well fall to the floor—not with my chest in the press like that. 

Secondly, would I “bounce back” after my mammogram? I know it sounds crazy, but I was convinced everyone I saw for the rest of the day would be able to tell I’d had a mammogram just by looking at me.

And then it was over. Really the best thing about mammograms is that they’re fast. Oh yes, and they save lives. But that’s really all you can say for them.

After that first mammogram, the technician gave me a gift—a small bottle of hand lotion with the logo of the Press Club on it. It was thoughtful, but I think a tee-shirt would be a more appropriate gift, not to mention, a better way to advertise. On the back it could read, “I did the right thing. I had a mammogram!” Then on the front it would say, “I wasn’t always this flat.”

Dorothy Rosby is a blogger and humor columnist whose work appears regularly in publications throughout the West and Midwest. She’s the author of four books of humorous essays all available locally at Mitzi’s Books and on Amazon. 

When I woke up Monday morning, the first thing I said to myself was, “What did you do all weekend? You didn’t finish the laundry. I know that!”

Not, “Have a wonderful day!” Not, “Do great things. You know you can!” Nope. It was, “You didn’t finish the laundry.” That’s only slightly better than the first thing I told myself when I woke up today: “You should whiten your teeth, girl.” No wonder I don’t want to get out of bed in the morning.

There’s another woman inside me, and she’s mean—at least to me. And not just in the morning. When I’m dressed up for an evening out, she says, “Nice outfit, but you’re starting to look a little matronly in it.” 

Every time I make a meal she says, “That could have been better.” And when I look around my living room, she says, “Some housekeeper you are. This place looks like a frat house without the beer cans.”

If I talked to other people the way she talks to me, I’d have no friends and my husband would have moved out long ago. But how do you stand up to a bully when the bully is you?

I sought advice from that font of all wisdom, Google, and I discovered there are more than 827,000,000 results for negative self-talk on the internet. I didn’t read them all. In fact, I only read the first few, because as my inner bully pointed out, I have the attention span of a gnat. 

Still, it was comforting. If there are 827,000,000 results for negative self-talk on the internet, I must not be the only one doing it.

According to a Psychology Today blog, there are a few basic varieties. There’s the self-talk we barely notice because it’s such a habit. (“I’m stupid.” “I’m fat.”)  If you don’t think those are harmful, try them out on a friend and see how they go over.

There’s the self-limiting variety. Statements like “I’m not creative” or “I’m no good at math” create a self-fulfilling prophecy because, once we say them, we immediately assume defeat and stop trying. That’s why, when my son used to ask me for help with his math homework, I never said, “I’m no good at math.” Instead, I’d say, “Go ask your father.”

There’s the kind of self-talk where we jump to conclusions, assume the worse, and take our interpretations of a situation as fact. “When I walked in, everyone stopped talking. They must have been talking about me.” You’re right! We were. I’m joking!

If your self-talk involves a lot of, “I shoulds” or “I shouldn’ts,” you might be channeling other people—your parents, a friend, Dr. Phil. While they may have your best interests at heart, you’re letting them run your life and you should stop that right now.

Join me in resolving to change negative self-talk to positive from now on. Instead of “I’m a lousy cook,” say, “I enjoy eating out.” Instead of, “I hate my muffin top,” say, “I love muffins.” Instead of “I’m a terrible housekeeper,” say, “My house is cleaner than Dorothy Rosby’s.”

Make it a habit of saying your new positive statements repeatedly and with enthusiasm—except when you’re around me. You’ll feel better about yourself, plus someone might bring you muffins. 

Dorothy Rosby is a blogger and humor columnist whose work appears regularly in publications throughout the West and Midwest. She’s the author of four books of humorous essays all available locally at Mitzi’s Books and on Amazon. 

I lost my cellphone…again. It wasn’t in my purse and it wasn’t in the booth I was sitting in. I could think of only two other possibilities and they both invoked fear and trembling. Either it had been stolen by someone with a lot of contacts outside my calling circle or it was lost in the landfill—the one inside my car.

I asked the friend I was lunching with to give me a head start to the parking lot, then to call me and keep calling until I answered or gave up. I could barely hear my phone vibrating, calling for help, the minute I opened my car door. The sound reassured me that nobody was running up my cellphone bill. And it kept on reassuring me again and again while I dug through all the trash in my car. But what I really needed it to do was tell me where it was. I found it eventually, long after my friend had quit calling and my knees were dirty from kneeling on the pavement.

But this essay is not about misplacing my cellphone, though I’ve misplaced it enough times to write a book about it. This is an essay about character building and what a crock it is. I’ve always told my son that frustrating situations like this one make us smarter, wiser, stronger and kinder. I’ve quoted General George S. Patton, “Pressure makes diamonds.” And Eleanor Roosevelt, “A woman is like a tea bag. You can’t tell how strong she is until you put her in hot water.” And me, “Manure makes your garden grow.”

Blah blah blah. I am so full of it! And he knows it. Now he uses these bits of wisdom against me when I’m in a difficult situation and am handling it maturely by throwing a fit, as I did during the above incident. He knows that with all the character-building experiences he’s seen me have, I ought to have more character by now.

It should have been a character-building experience when, out of all the thousands of gas pumps in the area I was traveling in a few years back, I somehow managed to pick the one with a crack in it the morning after a torrential downpour. I had to have the gas tank drained, get the gas gauge repaired and stay an extra night. I got a new oxygen sensor out of the deal, but no more character.

I suppose it was a character-building experience when I became the first person in recorded history to get a nasty infection from a paper cut. I’m not making that up. I might have even been the first person ever, since before recorded history, they had no need for paper. Anyway ten days of soaking and antibiotics and still no more character.

It was a character-building experience when I stayed in a hotel where the air conditioner rained on my bed during the night and the pool light floated in the swimming pool by its cord. No more character, though who knows what would have happened if I’d tried to swim.

Someone named Ben Johnson said, “He knows not his own strength that hath not met adversity.” Someone named Dorothy Rosby says, “If he never met adversity, he wouldn’t need to know his own strength.” 

There’s a Jewish proverb that says, “I ask not for a lighter burden, but for broader shoulders.” Suit yourself. I don’t think broad shoulders would be a good look for me.

Many people will tell you God will never give you more than you can handle. That doesn’t feel like an incentive to get stronger.

Making Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s meals with an unreliable gas oven should have built some character. Having three low tires in one month should have built some character. Having my flight delayed because of freezing rain should have built some character. And look, still no more character—no new oven yet either. I don’t feel smarter, wiser, kinder or stronger, which leads me to believe all of it was completely unnecessary. If I couldn’t write about it, it would be of no use whatsoever.

Dorothy Rosby is a blogger and humor columnist whose work appears regularly in publications throughout the West and Midwest. She’s the author of four books of humorous essays all available locally at Mitzi’s Books and on Amazon. 

A lot of older people blame their age when they forget something. I think they’re forgetting how much they forgot when they were younger.

If there’s one thing I remember, it’s that I’ve always been forgetful. And I blame it on the same thing I’ve always blamed it on: I don’t pay attention. It’s hard to remember where I put my car keys if, while I’m putting them down, I’m trying to remember where I left my reading glasses.

Nevertheless, I know a lot of people who worry about their memory. So as a public service, I’m going to share some tips I’ve gleaned from the fount of all knowledge: the internet.

Tips for the Forgetful

1) Exercise. Some studies have found that regular aerobic exercise appears to boost the size of your hippocampus, the part of your brain that is central to memory and learning. And bonus, it’s also known to reduce the size of other parts of your campus.

2) Eat right. Experts say a diet made up of fruits, vegetables, beans and foods that are high in healthy, unsaturated fats (olive oil, fish, nuts) is thought to be good for your brain and therefore for your memory. I can definitely vouch for the role of food in memory. I’ve cooked some pretty unforgettable meals. But I’m not sure that’s what they mean.

3) Relax. I’m sure you already know that chronic stress inhibits the immune system and causes headaches, high blood pressure, heart palpitations, and shortness of breath. But did you know it has also been shown to affect memory. There now; that ought to help you relax.

4) Sleep. Research suggests that memory consolidation takes place during sleep through the strengthening of the neural connections that form our memories. If only I’d known that back in college. That’s what I would have told my professor when I dozed off in his economics class.

5) Believe in yourself. According to the Harvard Health Beat Blog, older learners do worse on memory tasks when they’re exposed to negative stereotypes about aging and memory, and better when the messages are positive. When younger people make disrespectful comments about aging, we need to remind them gently that they’ll be older one day too—unless we kill them first. Kidding! Forget I said that.

6)  Repeat it. Experts say when you want to remember something, you should write it down or repeat it out loud. For example, say “I’m putting the grocery list on the counter” or “Tomorrow is trash day.” I’m no memory expert, but I think you should say it loudly, too. That way if you forget, maybe someone who was in earshot at the time can remind you.

Likewise when you’re introduced to someone, repeat the name several times. “It’s nice to meet you, Susan. Isn’t the weather nice, Susan? What do you do for a living Susan?” Meanwhile, look closely at Susan until you begin to associate Susan’s name with her appearance—or until she says, “My name isn’t Susan.” You may not remember what her name is after that, but you’ll definitely remember what it isn’t.

7) Use memory tricks, if you can remember any. I’m kidding! I know you can. Some examples include “My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Noodles” is an easy way to remember the planets; RICE reminds us of the treatment for injured limbs (rest, ice, compression, and elevation); and WDIPMCK stands for where did I put my car keys.

Dorothy Rosby is a blogger and humor columnist whose column appears regularly in publications throughout the West and Midwest. She’s the author of four books of humorous essays all available locally at Mitzi’s Books and on Amazon.