Victory Soap v. 2.0

No, nothing naughty, you pervs. I confess instead to a liking for devices that do more than one thing. For instance, I bought -- and still have in the box -- a toaster oven/griddle/coffeemaker contraption at Big Lots. The same device was about forty bucks online, but Big Lots had a pile of them for twenty smackaroos. (The Fifties-ish lingo will soon be explained.) It will furnish my future separate office, or beach cottage (which will be a real beach cottage -- a ramshackle hut that you won't mind tracking sand into -- have I told you about my beach cottage fantasy? I've become old enough to start entertaining those)... Anyway, I heart multiuse appliances. There was this Royal typewriter on Ebay that also had an AM radio in the case, which I unfortunately didn't win... But James Lileks has come across the ultimate way-cool multipurpose device: a car that has a record player in the dashboard. If I find one of these babies for sale (after I sell a few best-selling novels, or have an anonymous millionaire leave me lots of money) I may buy that instead of a Jeep.

Or a Miata... (complete change of subject here) I set up my Amazon tipjar years ago, and haven't changed the settings since. I was in a jocular mood, I guess, so I set up the thank-you notices to say things like "thank you for helping me become an Eeville Capitalist Running Dog!" and "thanks for helping me buy a Miata, bwahahaaha!" I never dreamed that anyone would 1) actually think I was serious, and 2) get upset that someone would dare to use money donated by readers to buy whatever the hell she likes (assuming I really want a Miata, which I don't).

Well, that shows how naive I am... a few weeks ago Kim Du Toit was kind enough to respond to my many whines and complaints about how unhappy I was in my current domicile by asking his readers to donate a few bucks to my "begging bowls." The Amazon thing is set up to go to a yahoo email account I don't check regularly. So I missed an irate letter from a would-be donater who was so upset at my "Miata" reference that he pulled his donation. I sent back an irate response of my own, but the whole thing basically has me scratching my head. I never changed the settings because frankly Amazon doesn't make it easy to do so, and now I can't change it to something more generic ("thank you for your contribution" or something) because people like this fool will think I was chastised.

In any case, I finally went in and changed it. It will now read "Thanks for helping me buy a Cadillac Escalade! Take that, Gaia!" That's much better.