This is Not How I Get Down and Dirty

So who subscribes to Amazon's daily local deals? If you don't, it's like Groupon where every day they email you the deals of the day.

Some of them are great, we actually found a new good local restaurant and ate at half price while doing it. I've shopped in a kitchen store and bought stuff I didn't need because I bought a coupon for $20 and got $40 worth of said stuff. And I have a coupon for a wine tasting that I am waiting to redeem sometime next month. Fun.

Then there's also the toe fungus offers, the spa offers, the gutter cleanings and on and on. I'm still thinking about the Cupcake tour in NYC. A two hour tour with six tastings. Now cupcakes are an almost perfect food. So many varieties from which to choose, and an ideal sized dessert... or meal. Whatever. But six tastings in two hours? Even for my sugar addicted body, that might be a bit much.

The latest offer is one which doesn't have a chance in hell of being purchased. For $29, I can register in the Out-Fit Challenge Mud Run. Are you freakin' kidding me? I need to pay to run a 5K race with military-style obstacles, which includes mud, water, ice and fire. Now this is scheduled for next weekend so the ice thing seems a little weird. Fire and mud however, are deal breakers. Ok, so is the 5K part.

Here are a few of the selling points:

• Costumes encouraged, but expect to get those costumes dirty
• Look out for obstacles like the "Cherry Picker" and "Hello Sailor"
• Meet new friends and the Muddy Go-Go Boy

Did I mention it is the first national LGBT mud run? That might have something to do with the sailors and costumes, but I digress.

Now I have some tentative plans for next weekend, but even if I didn't, almost anything, including giving the dog a bath sounds better than a mud run. Especially when you need to pay an insurance fee, which they give back to you... if you don't have a reason to need it.

Guess, I'll go back and see what other coupons are being offered. Oh look, two hours of house-cleaning for $35. For an extra six bucks, I get a clean house, I don't have to run a 5K and there's no mud involved. I think we have a winner.

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Victoria's Newest Secret

For the last few months, I have been receiving coupons in the mail from Victoria's Secret. $10 off any bra, so much off a specific dollar amount and oh yes...a coupon for a free pair of panties. Free, as in nada, nothing, take 'em and walk out...free. I like free. I do no longer like Victoria's Secret however.

Now there was a day when I would walk in and purchase an item or five. Those days, like the great woolly mammoth are long gone. Mainly, I can't get past all the garish colors. Occasionally, you will find me in a color other than black or grey, as in blue jeans or jewel-tone sweaters...but hot pink has never been in my wardrobe.

And then there's the prints. They give me a headache. Don't like them, don't wear them, I don't even want to see them.

So venturing into VS for any reason that will cost me money is not something I choose to do with any frequency.  But there is that FREE coupon. So the past few months the free coupon has expired before I had a chance to get to the mall to redeem it. Yesterday I found myself in a mall, with my coupon...all ready for a quick VS in and out procedure.

Since the coupon was for a specific type of panty, I just thought I would ask the cashier where I could find the free "booty."  Well, much to my surprise the female cashier was flanked by two guys, working on god knows what, but doing it while holding women's underwear. Since when did they start hiring young, tall, good looking men to work in a women's lingerie shop? Huh.

I asked one of the young men where I could find my freebie and he walked around the counter and escorted me the the right ones. Well how about that service. And as I picked out the color which most suited me...black, I was thinking about whether VS is now in the hook-up business. I mean these guys gotta get hit on on a daily, if not hourly basis. All these young...and a few older women coming in looking for sexy undergarments, asking questions to the male sales help. And who are these guys desiring to work there? hmm...an interesting new phenomenon has occurred.

After the female cashier asked if the free panties were the only thing I wanted today and I answered "yes," she kind of sneered at me. I couldn't care less. She wrapped my no-cost item in pink tissue paper and placed it in a tiny VS pink shopping bag. Done. In and out in five minutes.

Leaving the store, I wondered if this new guy selling underwear thing is in all the stores, or if I was just lucky to find the perfect one. I think I need to find out.

This may take some time and effort, but it's all in the name of research.

I hope they send me another free coupon next month.

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