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Charlie Hatton
Brookline, MA
I originally wrote this piece for MediaShower.com, for use on the late, great comedy site ZuG.com. Text and images published here with permission.
There are times in a man’s life when he just wants to hang with his bros. We drink beer, we smoke cigars, we belch and cuss and scratch ourselves inappropriately and watch tight-pantsed athletic men play professional sports without thinking too hard about why we get so gosh-darned excited about it.
(But DUH. Because we get to drink and smoke and scratch during the games. Obviously.)
Still, as the philosophers say: man cannot live with bros alone. We can’t just hang out in little sweaty clusters, huddled on couches and oozing testosterone at each other. People would talk. No, sometimes we need a more feminine touch.
And to reconnect with my own female-leaning bits, I’ve decided this time to only review products with a girl’s name at the top of the letterhead. Read on for my actual Facebook posts, as we rub elbows — and boobs — with some of the world’s most beloved female figureheads.
And please excuse the inappropriate scratching, ladies. Old habits die hard.
My first visit was to Sara Lee Desserts, who I really feel should raise their game to a sixth-grade reading level, at least:
Sara Lee — or one of her ‘Eempah Leempahs’, perhaps — mostly ignored my objection, but answered in the sugariest way possible:
Next, I asked a very simple question at Jo-Ann Fabrics — and got a touchy-feely artsy-assed answer:
The Jo-Ann folks followed that with another, more chilling reply:
The message being that some of the pipe cleaners they sell cannot be
used to clean pipes. Black is white! Up is down! Rick Santorum is Charles Nelson Reilly! Stop the world, Jo-Ann; my pipe wants to get off.
Then, I tried to beat the heat by asking the folks at Pam for advice — but that turned into a “sticky situation“, too:
Surely, I thought, the gals at Mary Kay would help me in my hour of fashion emergency.
(Not necessarily — and don’t call them Shirley.):
Finally — smoked out, sticky and singed — I paid a visit to the girl I may have loved the most before — plump and juicy Wendy’s. Or rather, slim and svelte Wendy’s:
All in all, it was a pleasant jaunt through the ‘fairer‘ side of Facebook. Also, I totally copped a feel when I was sliding past Jo-Ann, and she didn’t even notice. So yeah, bros — this was a good day. And I barely cussed or burped out loud at all.
Maybe I should try that fruity tropical toe cream, after all.
Last week, Zolton yukked it up with Secret deodorant, Omaha Steaks, Lever 2000 and Progresso soup. Want to join in the prank? Click the links to see each real-life Facebook post, and comment or ‘Like’ them to generate more buzz. Or visit Zolton’s own Facebook page!
Permalink | No CommentsI originally wrote this piece for MediaShower.com, for use on the late, great comedy site ZuG.com. Text and images published here with permission.
I’m not good with kids. This should come as no surprise to anyone who’s ever known me, heard of me, or watched me run screaming in a panic away from small young people.
In fact, the only ones who seem oblivious to my aversion to children are, naturally, children. Like sharks that smell blood, and bears that smell fear, and cougars that smell impressionable young doctors with mommy complexes and loads of disposable income, children can pick up the scent of the one guy who doesn’t own a game console, and who is only interested in “Dora the Explorer” if it’s some sort of skin flick.
My most serious challenge, kid-wise, are the two boys who live down the street and stop by on weekends with their mother to “visit.” Which means the mom and my wife get to sip chardonnay and yak, while I’m on duty entertaining the offspring. And all they ever want is to play “Cops and Robbers.” Where they’re the cops, I’m the perp, and it’s “Violating Civil Rights” week on Law & Order, apparently. Ow.
After a few weeks of this, I’d had plenty enough of being locked in the basement “holding cell,” or beaten with a sock full of army men. This weekend, I told the little runts, I’m the law around here — so long as my wife’s busy getting your mom drunk, anyway — and they’re the ones getting waterboarded and tased for a change.
Sadly, this is my most “official”-looking shirt. They wouldn’t let me park cars at a Denny’s in this thing.
Luckily, I didn’t have to go it alone. My old friend Amazon was there to provide all the law enforcement paraphernalia I needed to put those pint-sized perps in their place. Here’s the incident report we filed:
My Amazon Review:
When the perpetrators arrived, I noted that they’d parked their bikes in a designated “Schwinn-free zone” and wrote them each one of these tickets, with a twenty dollar fine. The kids said that they didn’t have twenty dollars, and anyway their rides were “Huffys.”
I told them, “You’re a couple of Huffys” — Horacio said that once on CSI:Miami, I think — upon which they unlawfully ripped their tickets in half and refused to pay. So I wrote them another ticket each for ripping up their tickets — and they ripped those up. So I wrote two more for littering, which they also ripped up.
Eventually, I ran out of tickets and decided to just smash one of their taillights with my nightstick, like Cagney and Lacey used to do, probably. But their bikes didn’t have taillights. And I didn’t buy a nightstick. I bought a bunch of parking tickets.
*sigh*
They told me back at the Academy there’d be days like this.
My Amazon Review:
I didn’t want to be one of those cops who doesn’t even know his department regulations, so I bought this book to bone up on procedures. Plus, I needed to make a formal list of all the things I’d be charging the kids with — for instance, I wanted to make sure that arguing in public that the new Star Wars trilogy is better than the original is some kind of punishable felony. (It isn’t. But it oughta be.)
Unfortunately, this book is meant for UK law enforcement and is nearly 800 pages long, and I couldn’t make heads nor tails of it. So when I got the kids into “interrogation,” I just threw the book at them. Literally. Which kicked off a rather smashing game of Dodgebook that got us through most of the afternoon.
An okay read; I give it a four. Needs more pictures in the “Sex Crimes” section.
Which didn’t teach me anything about law enforcement, really. Except that when my wife sees what we did to the encyclopedia shelf, I’m pretty sure my conjugal visits will be suspended for a while.
My Amazon Review:
I figured the kids needed to learn that crime doesn’t pay. And I needed a sandwich, and maybe a nap. What better way to achieve both goals than to cuff the kids up together for a couple of hours and let them think about whatever it was we were supposed to be pretending they’d done?
I even got soft and bought this fuzzy sort of handcuff, so they wouldn’t hurt the kids’ wrists. Sure, they’re not “standard police issue,” probably, but what can I say? Every once in a while “good cop” wins out over “bad cop.”
Of course, their mom was a little taken aback when she found her boys handcuffed together with these in the hall closet while I was off having a snack. I explained the whole game and we let the kids go and it was all fine — but she did “confiscate” the cuffs, and asked us to watch the kids a little longer while she and her husband played some version of the game themselves. She mentioned something about “Bad Cop, Naughty Cop,” but I didn’t ask questions. I mean, without any robbers, what’s the point, really?
My Amazon Review:
What’s better about being a cop than eating doughnuts? Try being a cop with two young perps in custody and eating doughnuts in front of them until they cry their little lawbreaking eyes out. Yeah, that’s right — you kids should have thought about doughnuts before we started pretending you were armed robbers or embezzlers or cow rustlers or whatever.
But what’s even better than that?
Deciding to turn the two young “perps” into snitches, “bribing” them with three dozen doughnuts for “turning state’s evidence,” and then sending them home with their parents on a sugar high that would make a methadone clinic worker weep. Don’t worry, Mom and Dad; the kid’s will be asleep by ten. AM. Next Tuesday. Have fun with that!
“Constable Zolton, reportin’ for doodie, cap’n!”
You see what happened there? That’s called “To Protect (My Private Time) and Serve (My Goal of Never Babysitting Again).” Now move along, citizen. Nothing more to see here.
Want to continue the prank? Click the links to see each real-life Amazon review, then mark them as “helpful” so they rise to the top of the list on Amazon!
Permalink | No CommentsI originally wrote this piece for MediaShower.com, for use on the late, great comedy site ZuG.com. Text and images published here with permission.
One of the best things about Facebook is the way companies embrace it, setting up shop and reaching out to consumers. It’s about community. It’s about cooperation. It’s about communication.
Because it sure as hell isn’t about the IPO.
In the spirit of serious reviews and frank product discussions, I decided to hit up Facebook again for a chat about a few of my favorite products. Read on for my actual Facebook conversations with the companies listed.
And also, with what appears to be a fairly odd — but presumably very clean — Filipino dude living in his parents’ basement. And isn’t that what Facebook is all about?
First on my list was Secret deodorant. Sure, it’s “strong enough” for a man — but as a man, would it eat my underarms away like some flowery flesh-feasting bacteria? This inquiring mind smelled fresh as a daisy, and desperately wanted to know, STAT:
Soon enough, it was time for lunch — a steak sandwich and a steak sandwich, on the Underhill’s bill, of course. But even the Omaha Steak folks can’t be trusted these days:
Scandals leave me feeling all dirty — and not in the good way. So I decided to suds it up with my favorite Lever 2000 soap. And that just raised more questions.
I couldn’t find an “official” Lever 2000 FB site, exactly, so this ‘lever2000.com.ph’ page would have to do. The broken English matched my shattered dreams — but I tried my best to fit in and asked my questions, anyway. Come clean, Philippine!
In a tailspin, I finally sat down for a nice hearty bowl of Progresso. The soup was good food, but getting hold of them to say so was no can of corn. Or can of minestrone, for that matter.
I guess this whole “Facebook communication” thing isn’t as straightforward as I thought. Probably all these companies are still mourning that IPO beating.
I’ll give it a week, and try again. Maybe by then, the Filipino kid will get back to me with a list of all my parts. That’ll be nice.
Last time, Zolton threw the ‘book at Chevy, Jif and Tide. Want to join in the prank? Click the links to see each real-life Facebook post, and comment or ‘Like’ them to generate more buzz. Or visit Zolton’s own Facebook page!
Permalink | No CommentsI originally wrote this piece for MediaShower.com, for use on the late, great comedy site ZuG.com. Text and images published here with permission.
This has been a most uncomfortable summer. With the mercury millimetering toward triple digits, and humidity levels imported fresh from a Guatemalan rain forest, the weather has been more sauna than summertime. I’ve had enough sweat rolling down my back to charge neighborhood kids three bucks a pop for a Slip ‘N’ Slide. If I built a hydroelectric dam over the crack of my ass, I could power a city block.
Sure, I support global warming just as much as the next guy, but when it has me considering public works projects in my underpants, something’s got to give.
Meanwhile, there’s no end in sight to this sundrenched boxerflooding sweatfest. In the “dog days” of summer, we’re barely through the withers. With six more weeks of dewlaps and flews to go, it’s time for some relief.
So to beat the broil, I turned to Amazon in search of products that could stop a heatwave in its tracks. Or at least at the waistband of my underwear. Here’s how it went:
My Amazon Review:
I’ve watched those Peppermint Pattie commercials for years. Eating one gives “the sensation of shushing down a snow-capped mountain,” they say. It’s like “yodeling in the frigid Alpine snow,” they tell me. It feels like “a giant soothing Sno-Cone down your pants on a hot August afternoon.” So they say, in these commercials.
Hogwash.
On a particularly sweltering recent afternoon, I put their advertising to the test. I ate forty-six of these little patties — and I got a “sensation,” all right. Not of skiing or crooning or cooling my undies, though. More like the feeling of three pounds of chocolate crammed down my colon, and a faint minty tinge to all five senses. You ever HEARD peppermint? I can’t recommend it.
I’ve got the sensation of sledding down a snowy hill — ON MY INTESTINES.
Bottom line: Eat a Pattie if you’re looking for a nice sweet treat. But if you’re suffering through a summertime heat wave? Drop in a Sno-Cone. Your colon — and your BVDs — will thank you.
My Amazon Review:
This seemed perfect. What better way to stay cool in the summer than to live in a house made of ice? And to own an ice house that’s both “cooler” than others and “elite” — what is that, like a nine-bedroom ice mansion with a Zamboni-groomed tennis court and Frosty the Snowman as pool boy? I couldn’t believe my luck that this product was both in stock and under ten dollars. What a bargain!
Sadly, I discovered when the package arrived — the rather less-than-mansion-sized package, I might add — that this is just a small “cooler” for ice or drinks sold by a company named Igloo. And while it might be perfectly adequate for those purposes, it is NOT in any way large enough to serve as a summer live-in ice castle retreat. I can’t stress this point enough. For starters, there’s zero space for servants’ quarters, a tennis court is entirely out of the question, and the closet space is sorely lacking. I doubt I’d even be able to fit a decent garage in the back.
To top it off, the cooler isn’t even made of ice, as I’d hoped. It’s some sort of insulated plastic material or other. And good luck trying to invite the Rockefellers or Mellons to spend the weekend in something like that. It’s simply a disaster.
My Amazon Review:
Finally, I thought, a product designed with me in mind! Of all the areas needing relief from the heat this summer, my laptop is far and away number one on the list. I simply couldn’t wait for my PacificBreeze savior to arrive.
Except when I opened the package, the product manual seemed to suggest that it’s meant for use on some sort of “laptop computer.” But… I don’t have one of those. It’s just really hot in the house, and I wanted to stay cool while I’m sitting on the couch watching my stories on the TV. Evidently, I missed an important detail somewhere along the way.
It’s just as well, I suppose. I tried plugging that USB cable included with the cooler into every “port” I could think of around my laptop, and not one of them made the thing power on. I guess I’m not as “standards compliant” as I used to think I was.
Fat, drunk and with electronics plugged into your face is no way to go through life, apparently.
My Amazon Review:
I found this product in the “Toy” section and gave it a look. I suppose it could qualify as an amusement for kids wanting Christmas in July, or seeking revenge for a St. Valentine’s Day snowball massacre. But I was more interested in refrigeration than recreation, seeking temperature reducement over a ten-year-old’s amusement.
Luckily, the faux snow claimed to be chilly as well as pretty — much like my senior prom date. So I took the plunge and waited with sweaty anticipation for my prize to arrive. Also a lot like prom, come to think of it.
But unlike prom, my package showed up within three weeks — and I wasted no time expressing my appreciation. Throwing caution (and the instructions) to the wind, I poured the whole jar down the back of my shorts, hoping for sweet cooling relief. Which I got, sort of. It’s just that I underestimated the awesome EXPANSION capabilities of this magical white powder. It reacted with the sweat on my body and swelled my pants area up like little Violet Beauregarde on an Icee Pop bender.
It’s like a party in my pants, and everyone’s curling!
I wouldn’t recommend this particular “application” at home — and certainly not in your favorite pair of chinos — but this snow stuff sure works like magic. I’m planning on ordering another jar (and some sturdier legwear) for the next heat wave that comes along.
Yet another problem solved by Amazon. Sure, I’m out a pair of perfectly innocent shorts, but I accomplished my mission for cool. If I can’t feel my underpants area any longer, then so far as I know I’m not sweating into my underpants area. Zolton 1, Global Warming 0.
Want to continue the prank? Click the links to see each real-life Amazon review, then mark them as “helpful” so they rise to the top of the list on Amazon.
Permalink | No CommentsI originally wrote this piece for MediaShower.com, for use on the late, great comedy site ZuG.com. Text and images published here with permission.
I recently noticed an alarming trend. Everywhere I went, no matter who I talked to — my coworkers, my wife, even the dog — nobody listened to me. I could yammer until I was blue in the uvula about brilliant new office policies, or the role of French maid outfits in a modern marriage, or which carpets in the house are least suited for pooping — nothing but blank stares and indifferent shrugs. Clearly, there could be only one explanation for this disconcerting lack of attention:
Everyone I knew had suddenly and simultaneously gone hard of hearing.
You look at me when I’m talking to you, Snausage-breath!
Maybe they fell victim to a contagious swimmer’s ear outbreak, or listened to too much loud rock and roll as puppies. However it happened, I resolved to get these people (and animals) professional help. Either that, or I would be learning sign language phrases like “wet T-shirt staff meetings,” “crotchless Swiffers” and “live canine taxidermy.”
Of course, I couldn’t just send everyone off for a hearing test en masse. That would involve too much coordination, too many insurance forms, and anyway — how would they hear me tell them to go see the doctor? They wouldn’t, is how, because they’re deaf, you insensitive bastard.
No, I would have to test their hearing myself. All I needed was a few items that could produce distinctive, wildly annoying sounds, which I would then play for my test subjects, to see who responded. With the help of a few products from Amazon, here’s what I bought, and how my home-administered tests turned out.
My Amazon review:
The idea here was to make the “nails on a blackboard” noise, and look for a response. The first relevant product I saw was this whiteboard, which I assumed would work in just the same way, so I ordered it.
The day before arrival, I went to my local nail salon and asked for a manicure “as pointy, jagged and screech-inducing as possible.” To their credit, the salon ladies delivered — my fingertips looked like a cross between a wolverine claw and Jewel’s teeth. Freddy Kreuger would have insisted on filing those things down before leaving the house.Sadly, I soon discovered my cuticular disfigurement to be for naught when the whiteboard arrived, and dragging the snaggly husks of my nails down it PRODUCED NO SOUND WHATSOEVER.
How is that even possible? I’ve got the nails for the job here. BLACKboard, screechy. WHITEboard, not at all? Is this some kind of racist thing? Just call it a no-noise-making “honkyboard,” why don’t you? What gives, Amazon?
I just knew I should have ordered from United Classroom Supplies of Benetton. So much for that test.
My Amazon review:
If three weeks of South African sport taught us anything, it’s that soccer is approximately as action-packed as a first date with an Amish chick — and that these vuvuzela things are really, REALLY annoying. Perfect for my experiment. Or so I thought.
I started with the dog, waiting until she was asleep to sneak up behind her and give a good blast on the horn. What happened next is kind of a blur, but the encounter ended with a long trail of dog urine leading into the hall closet, from where the mutt wouldn’t come out for the next three days. Apparently, these vuvuzelas are capable of hitting the fabled “yellow note,” at least in mutts.
I call it the “Pissbringer.” The Zulus use these things to insta-milk zebras, probably.
I’m no scientist, but I think it’s safe to say that the pooch can definitely still hear sounds in the “amplified hippopotamus fart” audio range. Now all I have to do is train a flatulent hippo to command her to “sit,” “stay,” and “get out of the stupid closet; I need my umbrella,” and we’re back on track.
After some thought, I decided not to test my wife’s hearing with this product, mostly because I don’t want to deal with another mess. She sleeps on our bed — and there’s no telling where her pee trail would lead. Probably to a divorce lawyer.
My Amazon review:
This little gadget boops and squeals at random times, like a crazed robotic mouse or R2-D2 on a juma juice bender. Or my senior prom date.
First, I tested the dog, clipping the Annoy-A-Tron to her collar before a walk. Even with the outside distractions, she definitely responded to the intermittent noises — trying desperately to twist around to find the Terminator that had apparently snuck up DIRECTLY BEHIND HER. So her hearing still works — as long as it’s not me doing the beeping. Just for that, I left the device on her collar for the whole walk — or at least until the thing squealed down the block, and she backflipped into Mrs. Wilson’s petunias trying to get at it. We scurried home pretty quickly after that; the mutt doesn’t listen, but she still knows when to “cheese it!”
For my wife, I needed a less obvious hiding place, but one where I could easily observe her reactions. So I snuck into the bedroom one night before she got home, pulled the buzzer out of her alarm clock and replaced it with the Annoy-A-Tron. For the next week, she’d set the alarm, and the clock would happily beep and shriek at her. Never at the time she wanted — and often in the middle of the night — but it still made about as much noise, on average, as before. And she could definitely hear it; I could tell by all of the tossing and turning and angry pounding on the clock. On the last night, I jokingly called it her “alarming clock” and she threatened to beat me to death with my own pillow. “Because it’ll take longer.”
I think I’ve collected all the data I need, thanks.
My Amazon review:
You can ignore most of the people some of the time, and some of the people most of the time — and me, apparently, ALL of the time — but nobody can ignore Fran Drescher in The Nanny. I’m not sure how anyone on the set could be within fifty yards without throttling the “HEEENH-EH-EH-EH-HEH!” out of her, but that’s another matter. I just needed to know if the people around me could still hear her.
I waited for a nice quiet evening at home, with the wife, dog and I gathered around the TV for a relaxing bit of entertainment. But instead of our usual light and breezy fare — one of the CSIs, perhaps, or 24, or Law & Order: Gory Murder Squad — I slipped in The Nanny on DVD, and waited for a reaction. It didn’t take long.
How could a just and loving TiVo unleash such horrors upon an innocent soul? I HAVE NO GOD!!
Thirty seconds in, the dog started howling like a set of asthmatic bagpipes. I’m pretty sure my wife was moaning in agony through the “What hath thou wrought?” look she shot me next, but all I could hear at that point was that impossibly nasal Drescher laugh, piercing my eardrums like the sharp twin stilettos of a gum-smacking Queens call girl. We lay writhing and keening in the floor for what seemed like hours, until finally — mercifully — something popped. And I couldn’t hear anything at all. That was a week ago.
So now I know that my wife and dog could hear all along; they were just ignoring me. And now my eardrums have exploded, and they think I’m ignoring THEM. Outstanding.
That’s the way it goes. Sometimes you get the bear, and sometimes the incontinent dog, the homicidal spouse and three hours of high-definition Fran Drescher psychological torture get you. Maybe next time I’ll just write all my bright ideas down on paper. Or a dry-erase honkyboard. I think I’ve got one of those lying around here somewhere.
You made me watch ten minutes of The Nanny. Now I eat your fingers! NOM NOM NOM NOM!!
Join in on the prank! Click the links to see each real-life Amazon review, then mark them as “helpful” so they rise to the top of the list on Amazon.
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