Argh!

The first rant of my week is about companies claiming their products do something when they quite clearly...DON’T! I dislike this immensely, to the point that I’m almost tempted, after writing this post, to send this to all the companies I am going to talk about.

How did the idea for this post come about, you might ask? A scented candle set me off. Yes, I bought a scented candle in a glass pot. One that claimed to “calm” me with its “beautiful woodland aroma”. Lovely, I muttered to myself in the supermarket. Just what I need. In the basket you go, you darling candle, you.

The candle found a home on my coffee table, and I lit it with high hopes. Quite excited, I might add. I love candles but haven't had any in the home for years because of having smaller kids around. Also, I was excited because I would be calm within five minutes, oh yes I would, and I'd been into town where people pissed me the hell off, so I needed calming. I left the room to put some meat into the crockpot and returned…to smell NO SMELL. I said to the candle, “What aroma, you lousy, non-smelling piece of shite!”

Why did the company claim the candle’s scent would calm me, when a) there was no effing scent, and b) I got myself into a fit of angst because their WAS no scent, so therefore, I was decidedly UN-BLOODY-CALM AND IN A WORSE STATE THAN BEFORE I LIT THE STUPID THING!

Take last week as another example of this consumer angst. The week before I’d purchased a snazzy breakfast cereal. Cheerios with “clusters”. The kids loved them, so of course, seeing as they were on special offer for £1 a box, I bought some more. Only to find THIS box had…NO BLOODY CLUSTERS! How rude? So I explained to my youngest that they are all made at the Cheerio factory and some poor worker may have been stressed that day and put the wrong bag in the wrong box.

Thinking in my head: You may have been stressed, love, but look what your stress has given me. STRESS! You...you...mofo.

By the end of the box, a few clusters appeared. About 10. Lovely. You know what? Cheerio, Cheerios, because I’m buggered if I’ll buy any of you again.

Now let’s discuss cleaning products. We’ve all seen the advertisements: Get your whites whiter than white! See those filthy socks? Wash them in THIS and they’ll be like new! See this crusty ketchup stain? See how the mess is ground in? Fear not! This solution will get it clean.

I have purposely placed ketchup on an old top, left it to dry and become GROUND in, then washed it. Nope, stain still there, almost yelling, "You fell for it! You believed the hype!" I have purposely slapped mud onto socks, left them to go dry, washed them in this miracle stuff and…nope, still dirty. What also gets me, is store products claiming to wash ALMOST better "than the leading brand". Well, if the leading brand doesn't get my shit clean, d'you think I'm going to be buying anything that gives a poorer performance?

Cillit Bang is another one. LIARS! I followed the instructions. It did NOT clean my hob as it claimed it would. My elbow grease, a scourer, and good old-fashioned washing-up liquid got it clean. Arseholes!

Oh, and speaking of ketchup… I bought some “hot” ketchup dipping sauce. Hmm, I thought, I fancy that. Something with a bit of hot bite will do me nicely. So I poured it onto my chicken burger, hoping to have a tasty accompaniment to my otherwise drab meal. Nope! Not even a whisper of heat. It’s ketchup with a slight “tang”. Vastly different to the tongue-burning, lip-swelling, lip-numbed experience I was expecting. When it says something is hot, I WANT HOT! I don’t go into the butcher’s, ask for a cut of beef, and expect to get pork, now do I? No, I wanted beef! I don’t enter the hairdressers, ask for a trim, and come out with half my hair gone!

Oh, wait. I have. That’s a given with the hairdressers I’ve visited. “Just a trim!” Whoopsie, she appears to have thought I said, “I like the bald look. Cut it all off and make me look one angry bitch for fun! Cut it all off and see if I get that look on my face where you know I want to punch your damn lights out!”

Today I also bought some bubble bath. “Stress Relax” and “Sleep Easy”. I tell you, they’d better bloody work, because after that candle fiasco, I’m well pissed off.

What companies naff you off with their claims? And have you ever written and complained? If so, what response did you get?

Don't Even Breathe, Buster!

Every couple of months… God, who am I kidding? Let’s start again. About twice a year I have one of those mental cleaning sessions where you gut your home as though the queen was coming to visit—or the mother-in-law. I spend the six hours a day I get without anyone else in the house and clean my arse off. (I wish, I could do with losing some fat off there.) Anyway, I don the rubber gloves, get out the bleach, and go to town. Now, on these days I blast the music, sing my head off, and dance if the fancy takes me. I’m not talking your usual cleaning fit here, but one where you also clean out all manner of things, including your shit drawers. Everyone has those, don’t they? A place where all the small things go that you “might need for later”—elastic bands, superglue, pencils, paperclips. In my case, I have two shit drawers and several shit cupboards. On the days I clean these out, my stuff then gets placed in the shit shed in the garden, and when the shit shed gets cleaned out, the crap then goes to the shit tip, where the workers sort through my stuff and it gets picked up by other people. Great! Someone else now owns my shit!

So, once I’ve finished a day of cleaning like this, I expect someone to NOTICE. I do NOT appreciate people walking in, dumping down their stuff, kicking off their shoes, making a sandwich and leaving breadcrumbs all over my worktops, and generally acting as though I didn’t just sweat my tits off cleaning all day. I don’t want anyone to say, “Oh wow, you cleaned today!” as though gobsmacked because, said like that, it makes an issue of the fact that they possibly feel I don’t clean on all the other days. I do, just not so…well.

You want the truth? What I expect, is for no one to even MOVE in the house on those days. Just don’t BREATHE, all right? Sit still. With your hands on your lap so you don’t touch the sofa I washed. With your feet off the rug I vacuumed on my hands and knees with the hose part because all your debris gets trapped in the pile. When you eat your dinner…actually, sod it, you’re not getting any, because that means making more mess. You need to sit and admire the beauty of my hard work and memorise how it looks because it will not be like this again for a very long time. Mummy's a writer, don't you know.

Now I’ll give you the reality. The house stays clean like this for as long as I’m in it alone. When everyone comes home, it resembles the state it was in earlier that morning, leaving me thinking I may as well not have bothered. The only difference is that my beloveds are having chest issues because of the gorgeous smell of bleach lingering in the air.

There's a post of mine HERE about one of my other cleaning efforts, where I scrubbed the oven in my knickers...

And then the dreaded questions start: Mum, where’s my…

Don’t even go there, matey, because I seriously hate those kinds of questions. Like I said in my post HERE, I am not the bloody oracle.

Let us rewind, back to the previous day, when the laundry—okay, the mountain of laundry—was piled high on the kitchen worktop, waiting for me to put it away. Note I said ME. No other bugger will even attempt to do this job. When, on the rare occasion I ask someone else to do it, I find they have taken the laundry upstairs and dumped it on the bedroom floor. This winds me up for several reasons.

1, I stood there and folded all that laundry

2, I stood there and folded all that damn bloody laundry

3, I stood there and folded all that damn bloody-pissing-shitting laundry

And the other bug, the one that gets me even more…oh, God, I can barely even type it without gritting my teeth…PEOPLE TAKING AN ITEM OF CLOTHING FROM THE MIDDLE OF THE PILE AND LETTING THE PILE TOPPLE OVER!

Pant! Pant! Pant!

AND THEN PICKING UP THE PART OF THE PILE THAT FELL AND JUST DUMPING IT BACK ON TOP, ALL MESSED UP!

Jeepers, that REALLY gets on my piddling tits, I can tell you. I KNOW I don’t put it away as often as I should, and during the times I do keep up with it, I wonder why I don’t just put it away after every laundry session but… Give me a bit of respect here! I don’t enjoy standing there folding it from the dryer. I don’t enjoy, before it even gets to that stage, of unballing stinky old socks or unrolling sleeves because people can’t be bothered to do it themselves.

Okay, that’s set me off again. God help my family members if they approach me now…
Roar! Argh! Fffffffffffffffffffffecking hell! I’ve turned into a fire-breathing, bite-your-head-off, you’d-better-get-the-eff-away-from-me dragon!

I need therapy, I’m sure. I shouldn’t be getting so annoyed about such irrelevant things.

Anyone else share this bug with me?


Pubic announcement. Yes, I meant pubic…


I know we authors must have a professional air about us, but here at Four Strong Women I post things in my “real self” mode. I’m a person just like any other, after all, so for the following, just pretend I’m not meant to be watching my Ps and Qs…

For one of my posts during my week of blogging here, in the interests of femininity, based on our discussion the other day about hairy legs and shaving, and also a discussion on my Facebook page about grey hairs, I am going to brave the unknown and do something just for you guys. Yes, I’m nice like that. Also, I’m curious to see if it will work.

You see, I’ve noticed some grey hairs DOWN THERE. And yes, I am going to DYE them and report back to you. I’ve found a very helpful site, where a woman has given tips on how to do this, and rather hilariously, she has made sure to tell her readers that this process isn’t recommended by healthcare officials due to the sensitive flesh, but that it has worked for her very well indeed. I have read her tips with much interest and will follow them to the letter.

I’m more upset by THOSE hairs than the grey ones on my head, and my God, they’ve GOT to go.

So, my dears, look out for that post!


And I’d just like to squeal…


SQUEAL!

That’s better. My Ellora’s Cave historical time-travel, His Beautiful Wench by Natalie Dae, is released today. Details HERE. EC releases freak me the hell out (I tend to poop a lot, no joke), so I’m off to have one of those mad cleaning days to keep my mind off it. I shall nip online periodically between bouts of bleaching. Oh, my poor family, when I tell them, “It’s that time again, loves. Please refrain from breathing when you step inside.” Even more so today, what with the poop problem...

Have a great day, folks!