DOES YOUR LIP BUTTER HAVE ATTITUDE?

It used to be that the ONLY definition of the word ATTITUDE was: "A personal view of something"

Now, that definition has morphed almost exclusively into:
"an arrogant or assertive manner or stance assumed as a challenge or for effect".

The Real Housewives Of Petty

This new perspective on an old word has in fact been embraced. Sure, many will ask the question, "Why do you have such an attitude?" at least three or four hundred times in their lifetimes, but think about it.

Don't you secretly respect those with said attitude and back off when they start throwing it around?

I was in the drug store today and spotted something curious...a small yellow box that boasted of its contents...peach mango lip butter with an ATTITUDE!

Lip butter? Really?

And I'm sorry, but when I think of peach mango, attitude is not what comes to mind.

I got to thinking:
*How would one know if peach mango lip butter really did have an attitude?
*Would we feel a little sting when applying it?
*Would it have a bitter taste?

It doesn't really have to do anything.

Nowadays, if the box says it has attitude, that's good enough for the easily influenced consumer.

At the store, there was only one left on the shelf , and I thought,"Wow! This kind of advertising must really work!"

It shook me up a bit to think that BAD ASS sells better than POSITIVE ATTITUDE. 

And then I remembered the first time I met my friend, Val McKenna. We were chaperoning an elementary school trip to Fire Island and I was making polite conversation. We had just seen a small snake in the bushes and everyone got very excited. It made me miss an old friend, so I mentioned it.

Me: "Ya know, that snake has the same coloring as a boa constrictor I used to own."
Val: "You used to have a boa constrictor??...as a pet?!"
Me (tearing up): "Yeah, his name was Bart and we used to watch TV together."
Val: "Your SNAKE watched TV?!"
Me: "It was our special time. He used to crawl up in my hair to get warm. Then, he'd poke his head out on and lay it on top of mine. That's how we'd sit on the bed and watch our favorite shows."
Val: "Wow CF! You're really badass!"

I sniffled a few more times and thought of Bart in his hobo bag, hanging off my back, snuggled among useless trinkets I bought as I waded through countless street fairs and Octoberfests.

After pulling myself together, I contemplated what she had said. Was I really badass for sharing special moments with my beloved pet boa? It was hard to fathom, especially when I remembered that I was not the one who fed Bart. I would rather have died than touch those gross, vicious mice and rats that he ate!

When I look at Facebook posts or Tweets, I see that the more popular folks are the ones with obvious ATTITUDE.

For example, this post came to be from someone who thinks she can take on the government: "You are holding the country hostage to forward the agenda of the few. The FEW. Do not make me get on a bus to DC!"

And TKT, thanks for proving my point: "My library account said I was DELINQUENT. I kinda liked the sound of that. A quick renewal and I wasn't nearly as cool anymore."

With documentation like that, I had to concede, If you can't beat 'em, join 'em. 

I mean, I want to sell books, don't I?

In an effort to be original, and in the interest of not stealing anyone's ad campaign, I googled a thesaurus and looked up ATTITUDE.

Five failed substitutions later, I had to admit that "KAFE CASTRO, the short story with TEMPERAMENT" doesn't pack the same punch as:

"KAFE CASTRO, the short story with the big ATTITUDE"

Now I get it.




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Scantily dressed, and confined to a Danish dental chair, one American woman is forced to relive her sexy, drug hazed past and confront her uncertain future in the first of CF Winn's COFFEE BREAK SERIES, KAFE CASTRO. Lindsey's unique imagination is further enhanced by an excessive amount of sweet air and an inability to spit. She drags the reader through her bizarre situation as she struggles to free herself and go home.

As you stumble along, you will be confronted by some serious questions. Is there a conspiracy to keep this young lady from being who she is truly meant to be? Is Fidel Castro alive and well and walking the streets of Copenhagen? And who exactly is the crazy topless woman?

Kafe Castro keeps the reader in stitches with its wit, humor, and the nagging sense that this could happen to you. Or has it already? If you’ve ever woken up naked in Pervy Robe Guy's backyard…

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CF Winn is the award-winning author of The COFFEE BREAK SERIES, a quirky group of short stories meant to be read while on break or in the waiting room of the doctor’s office. Her first novella, SUKI, has been grabbing hearts and hugging souls all over the United States. 

You can now order SUKI in paperback or digital on Amazon or at BOOK REVUE, one of the nation’s largest independent bookstores.  Learn more about SUKI at BOOK REVUE.  

CF Winn's blogs have been syndicated on multiple sites including The Masquerade Crew. More posts like these can be found at Humor Outcasts and The Patch where she is a regular contributor.  

Good Samaritan 101

I caught a guy shoplifting today.

When you read that, what do you think of? Can you picture me chasing him through the aisles, a young dude with a gun in his hand? Do you see packages fall out the deep pockets of his long overcoat as I pursue him? Do I seem heroic when you imagine me tackling him and slapping handcuffs on him as I shout, "Citizens arrest!" Store security comes running, and bars come down over the doors as the store goes into lockdown...

Ok...ok...that's not exactly what happened...

Max took me on a hunt for ear buds at Stop and Shop. Clearly I was where I was supposed to be because Stop and Shop does not sell electronics or their accessories. I was trying to convince my son of this when I noticed a man parked next to the magazines in the seasonal aisle I had just been dragged into. He was busy going through a package in the top part of the shopping cart, where moms usually sit their smaller children. I didn't have a good view, and I was being pulled through pretty fast, so I thought he was the magazine rep, putting out the new issues and collecting the old.
Finally, my son realized that there were no electronics to be found, and I "shiny objected"(bribed him with fancy pens) him into looking for school supplies with me. As I sorted through binders and mechanical pencils, I noticed that the man hadn't moved from the spot he was in, and that he was not doing any type of magazine rep work that I was familiar with. My husband joined us a second later, and we passed the man on our way to the registers.

I could not believe what I saw when I looked at him and his cart.

He was eating an entire package of Hillshire Farms smoked sausage! The plastic casing was ripped open in front of him. He was pulling greasy, bite sized pieces off the link and popping them into his mouth.

My husband and I looked at each other, disgusted, and agreed immediately that we didn't think he was going to pay for his meal. I felt very torn. I hate to judge a situation without knowing the facts, and the only thing I knew at this moment was that this man had eaten an entire pound of meat in a very empty aisle in a supermarket. I wondered, was he poor? Was he crazy? Was he just really hungry, but still intending to purchase what he'd consumed?

My husband didn't wait for me to figure it out. He went to Customer Service and alerted the store. I think he was right to do that.

The man's behavior did not appear to be on the up and up. If he didn't intend to pay, he was stealing. When enough shrink (stealing) occurs in a store, the prices go up. Even if this guy couldn't afford groceries, he would contribute to prices that others may not be able pay either.

But I also couldn't help and think about the story I had just written. MOORE THAN MEETS THE EYE is all about what goes on behind the scenes in people's lives and the misconceptions we have about each other. My heart went out to this man because I thought of all of the times I had to roll change to buy milk for my kids when I was a single mom and times were tough. But then I remembered, stealing, in any form was never an option.

I was at the register, checking out and I saw him enter a line a few feet from me. I had to wait for the person in front of me to finish her transaction, so I was there for a few minutes waiting. I watched him, hoping to see the empty plastic package get rung up. In this instance, I would be thrilled to have to admit that I was wrong.

He never left the checkout area.

I wondered, were they holding him up to question him? Had he been caught? Was he suffering from indigestion after eating all of that meat?

After a bit of creative eavesdropping, my husband found out that he hadn't had enough money for the other groceries in the cart. There was no sign of the sausage package, and I'm thinking that there wasn't supposed to be.

So what do you think? Were his actions justified if he was that hungry? Would you have told the store or would you have ignored it because it didn't directly affect you?

Just as shoplifting comes in more than one form, so does looking out for your fellow man. I used to leave out bottles and cans for a man who went around collecting them. One day he rang my bell and asked if he could take them from my recycling bin. I was happy to let him have them...till I saw him driving around in a car that was nicer than mine...now I cash in my own stuff...time to find a new cause.