Okay, just so you know, this is about a heavenly bubble bath experience that could have gone terribly wrong and literally landed me in heaven.. that’s if I’m still welcomed there now that I’m writing this blog. So, obviously if you follow this blog you know I’m into Chick Lit and one of my fav writers is Sophie Kinsella, therefore I’ve spent many a bubble bath enjoying her Shopaholic series. Becky Brandon is one of my favorite characters as far as being written into messes that I can’t imagine how she’s going to get out of. I’ve literally turned into a total prune, unable to pull the plug on the tub, needing to read just one more chapter to be sure she’ll be okay.

I’m now up to Mini-Shopaholic and something brilliant has happened. If you noticed I slipped into a lame British accent there, it’s because I’ve made an amazing discovery!!!

First, a little background… When I was a kid, I was jealous of kids who wore retainers, so I made myself a fake retainer out of a paper clip and wore it. I was also jealous of  kids who wore glasses, so I tried to fake my eye exam at the elementary school nurse’s office by saying I saw an elephant though it was clearly a pig and a giraffe which was clearly a chicken.  Maybe it was the fact that I was going with jungle animals when clearly the theme was farm animals, or perhaps I should have just gone with, “I don’t know, it could be a pig or a dog, because it’s clearly small and I think it’s an animal, but it’s too blurry to make out exactly.” Instead my mother got called into school because I was blatantly lying on my eye exam. Turns out through the years I learned my eyesight was better than 20/20. Should’ve been grateful, but no. In college I bought fake glasses to study with, because I thought they made me look smarter, which in turn made me feel smarter. First Love bought them too, and we’d sit in the stacks and study. He was an engineering major so he was actually smart and didn’t need the glasses, but, he was really pretty sexy in them, which made our study sessions very short, because it was more fun to make out with a studly smart guy in the stacks, then to actually study in them.. but I tangentalize…

Cut to now… I actually need glasses. Dang it! It started about two years ago, when I started wondering why the prescription bottle makers were making my prescription number so much smaller if they wanted me to read it into the phone when I reordered it. Then, I accidentally got a chick lit book out of the library that was “large-sized print” and when I got home was like, “oh no, an old person’s book.” Only when I went to read it, I was like, “oh no, I must be an old person, because I like the size of this print.” Obviously when I went back to my regular sized print, it was a bit of a strain. So I went to CVS and bought a very trendy looking pair of magnifying glasses (and by trendy I mean they had an animal print on the inside plastic). I’m appalled to say they work.

Back to the heavenly discovery. The other night as I slipped into a wonderfully warm and soothing bubble bath (in a jacuzzi tub that I actually fit into… see very first blog post if you missed it) I closed my eyes and listened to Mini-Shopaholic. Yes, you read that right, “listened to.” I got Mini-Shopaholic on CDs, and it is fabulous! They got a very talented actress named Rosalyn Landor to read the many different parts in her lovely British accent, and the book just came alive…

Now that leads to the part where I almost died. I was listening as Minnie was causing a raucous with Father Christmas when all of sudden I was hearing something about Becky’s husband Luke and a lawsuit and a house, and I realized, dun dun dun… I had fallen asleep, in the tub.. NOT GOOD… potential for drowning! However, I do plan to continue this wonderful new heavenly trend of listen to my chick lit on CDs while in the bath, so someone needs to invent my fore-mentioned invention of a contraption that goes under the armpits and boobs and over the sides of the tub, to keep you afloat, should you fall asleep while relaxing.

I must tangent again, since I’m hopefully getting you excited about books on CDs. Notice that I mentioned that a talented actress is reading the book. This is as it should be. Many authors should not read their own books. There are exceptions: Loved Elizabeth Gilbert reading Eat, Pray, Love because I felt like she was reliving it, and Wayne Dyer has a wonderful reading voice, his books on CD are great for traffic. No jackass cutting me off can upset me while Dr. Dyer is telling me stories about eagles and ducks. On the other hand, the only thing worse than nails on a chalkboard is listening to John Gray read Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus. We’d like to think the guy who is teaching us about guys actually has a penis, and with that voice we can’t be sure. I couldn’t make it past the introduction. You want me to listen to a guy tell me about how I have to be in order to keep a man… Get James Earl Jones to read that book. If Darth Vader were telling me to get over the fact that a guy can just step over his socks that he dropped on the floor two days ago, and really not notice them because he’s focused on something else. I’d say, “Okay.” But if John Gray in his weeny voice tried to pull that shit, I’d be like Bitch you better write a new book and tell my man to pick his damn socks  off the floor or they are going in a pile with his Charles Manson t-shirt, his 5 plates that are piled in the sink, and his gross man hairs that cover my bathroom floor, and going into a bon fire in the shredder that he said he was going to recycle but actually only moved to the garage.  Up in flames John, up in Flames!

What the heck was I talking about? Oh yeah.. Bubble bath with chick lit on CD, GOOD. Almost drowning… BAD. Open to suggestions…

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