Books on sale! Babies on blankets!

See, this is what happens if you wait more than six months to write a blog post. Lots of crap adds up and then you don’t even know where to start. Then the summer hits and you’re busy. Then the autumn hits… and you’re even busier. Then you attend a big authors’ conference and go on a cruise and a few more Greek letters hit the streets. Then you remember you’re a disorganized procrastinator… and all hell breaks loose.

Welcome to my life.

For today, boys and girls, we’re simply going to throw out a quick list of Stuff That Happened that might still interest you. (Well, it interests ME, so that’s close enough for government work.)

Biggest News: Welcome to the World, Little Princess!

Last night we welcomed a granddaughter safely into the world. We’re delighted she’s here, and we suspect she will have the entire family wrapped around her delicate fingers before Christmas. Or, to be honest, before lunch.

Second Biggest News: Books on Sale!

If you like cozy mysteries (and who doesn’t, besides maybe Stephen King), there’s a big sale going on this weekend! One of ’em is my Red Ink Mystery book, The Tell-Tale Heart Attack. Grab it (and other books listed here) for under three bucks this weekend (today through Sunday)! Each book cover is a clickable link.

https://www.avamallory.com/mystery-promos

Third Biggest News: TWO new cozies coming in 2022!

I’ve got two more cozy mysteries in the Red Ink Mysteries series coming up in 2022: The Old Man and the Seat Belt and also A Farewell to Arms and Legs. I have the preliminary artwork for the first one, but I learned a valuable lesson: NEVER tell your cartoonist to “do what he wants” with your cover art. Then you end up with dead guys entangled in seat belts and you have to go back and work that into the plot. Plus, where did that cat come from?

Last Biggest News (is that a thing?): Silly Sci-Fi?

Would you like a little ridiculousness with your science fiction? Sure you would. I’m also working on this fun book, and I’m hoping it sees the light of day sometime in 2022. Keep busy, keep calm, and keep reading!

Today I taught my parents… (Part 2)

Last week on “Today I Taught My Parents,” we watched Linda teach her dad how to use a fast-food drive-thru.

This week on “Today I Taught My Parents,” Linda helps her mother navigate ordering food online through a restaurant’s website.

Linda’s mother looks nothing like this.

Every phone conversation with my mother over the past umpteen years has started like this: “I know you’re busy. Do you have a few minutes?”

I fall for this tactic every time. It’s a good thing that she’s cute. And that she’s my mother.

The other day she called to ask about working her way through ordering Chinese food online. They typically call their favorite Chinese restaurant on the phone to place an order, and then my dad drives there to pick it up. But, for some reason, the restaurant wasn’t answering their phone.

So, my mom, desperate for some General Tso’s chicken or pepper steak or maybe just fortune cookies, ventured online to place an order. This is where the phone call came in.

Mom: Hi, honey. I know you’re busy. Do you have a few minutes?
Me: Sure. [Apparently I enjoy lying to my own mother.] Whassup?
Mom: I’m trying to order food online from China House.
Me: Wait, speak up. I could have sworn you said you’re ordering food online.
Mom: I am. But it keeps asking me to create a profile.
Me: Are you missing a step or something? You shouldn’t need to create a profile. Just skip that part.
Mom: I can’t. It won’t let me go any further. When I finish and click Save, it just goes back to the profile page.
Me: This is happening on China House’s website?
Mom: No. I’m on a site called chinesemenu.com and…
Me: So you’re not on a site just for China House? Hang on a second…

My mom starts mumbling something else, but I’ve missed it because now I’m opening up a browser window and going to chinesemenu.com myself, just to be sure she’s not giving her credit card information to some Nigerian prince. Sure enough, it’s legit.

But she’s right about the profile page thing, which kinda freaks me out because I was 99% sure she was misunderstanding things or was on a page rerouting to the site of that Nigerian prince. Sure enough, creating a profile and saving it just takes me back to the same page I was just on.

Until I see something in the upper right corner of the screen.

Me: Mom? Are you still on the profile page?
Mom: [dripping with sarcasm] Where else would I be? I’ve been stuck on this friggin’ page for an hour now.
Me: Click on the words “chinesemenu.com” in the upper right corner of your screen.
Mom: What?
Me: Click… on… the… words…
Mom: I heard ya. I heard ya. I’m not deaf. I’m just old. And cranky.

She’s not wrong. On all counts.

Mom: That worked. Thanks!

Click.

I go back to my work. A few minutes later, the phone rings.

Mom: Hi, honey. I know you’re busy. Do you have a few more minutes?
Me: Sure. Why not? What happened now?
Mom: Well, I got through the entire order, but…
Me: [trying to sound helpful and not embittered and ready for therapy] Yes?
Mom: I got to the end where…
Me: Wait, what? the end of what?
Mom: The order! I got to the end and…
Me: Sorry. I’m on the site again, trying to walk through a fake order just to see what you’re seeing.
Mom: What? Why would you do something like that? Are you having Chinese food too?

I wisely decide not to explain this to her. After all, I may have initially said I’m not busy, but I’m not THAT not-busy.

At this point, I find China House on my screen again and walk my way through their menu, fake-ordering lo mein and moo shoo pork and making myself really hungry for Chinese food. Everything is fine till I get to the end.

Me: Mom, how did you input your credit card information?
Mom: What?
Me: Your credit card information. Where did you input that? I don’t see any options to pay for this order.
Mom: Oh, I didn’t. I clicked on Cash at Pickup.

This confuses me, because it seems so much more complex than simply placing an order over the phone—especially for my mom. Then I remember that she told me China House wasn’t answering their phone.

Me: So then, what’s the problem?
Mom: What do I do next?
Me: [looking at the screen with my fake order on it] Click where it says Place Order.
Mom: And then what will happen?
Me: Your computer will explode into a million tiny plastic shards, and time will move in reverse until you’re back in high school. Is that okay?
Mom: Don’t get cute with me. I taught you how to use a toilet.

She has a point. Even if it took me longer than most kids to get the hang of it, especially at night. But I digress.

Me: I assume it’ll place your order with China House. It might give you some indication of when you should go pick it up. Then, um, Dad can go pick it up, I guess.
Mom: [cheerily] Okay! Thanks!

Click.

I go back to my work… again. A few minutes later, the phone rings. I don’t even need to check the caller ID.

Me: Mom? What now?
Mom: Your father just called from downtown. They’re closed.

I feel awful for them both. They’ve been stuck in the house for weeks, like the rest of us, and they look forward to their outings.

Knowing my dad, though, he probably just stopped at the Wendy’s drive-thru on his way back home. You know, now that he’s an expert.

Today I taught my parents…

This week on “Today I Taught My Parents,” we watch as Linda tries to walk her father through using the Wendy’s drive-thru. Over the phone. During a pandemic.

*****

The phone rings. It’s one of my parents, but I’m in the middle of a video-conference board meeting that’s going to last for three hours, so I let it go to voicemail. While I’m smiling and nodding at the webcam and trying to take notes on the meeting, I surreptitiously open my email program and zap an email off to my mom telling her why I didn’t answer the phone.

At the end of the meeting, I see an email from her, stating my dad has a question, and that he’ll call in the morning “after 10.” I reply and ask to push it back to noon, knowing I won’t be conscious before 10 or 10:30.

The next day, the phone rings at 11:55 a.m. My parents are nothing if not overly punctual.

Me: Hi, Dad. Whassup?
Dad: Hey, what do you know about the Wendy’s drive-thru?
Me: What do you mean, what do I know?
Dad: How does it work?

At this point it occurs to me that I’m not sure my parents have ever used a fast food drive-thru. Like, ever. Sure, they’ve had fast food, but my recollection is that they always park, always go inside, and always eat in the dining room. Like civilized people.

I, on the other hand, grab greasy drive-thru food and eat it in my car on the way home from the grocery store, where I’ve just purchased healthy produce and low-carb ingredients for the pantry. The irony of this is never lost on me.

Me: Well, the Wendy’s near you has two windows. You pay at the first one and…
Dad: Do they take debit cards?
Me: Yeah, of course.
Dad: How does that work?
Me: Well, you order at the big light-up menu first and then…
Dad: Do they take your card from you?
Me (now feeling slightly confused): Umm, yes…?
Dad: Like, they take the actual card?
Me: Yeah. You hand them the card through the window—the first window—and they swipe it and hand it back to you. Then…
Dad: They hand it back through the window?
Me: Umm, yes…?

At this point I’m starting to wonder if this is an elaborate prank. But then I remember this is my dad, and that he still carries filthy wads of cash in his wallet. On purpose.

Dad: And then?
Me: Then, when you get your card back, you drive to the second window to pick up your order.
Dad: Uh huh.

At this point I’m starting to wonder if he’s taking notes.

Me: Usually at Wendy’s, your receipt is in the bag with your order at the second window. At McDonald’s they give you the receipt when they hand back your debit card.
Dad (hesitating): Umm, okay. Thanks!
Me: Enjoy!

Yup, he’s taking notes. Or maybe he’s just worrying about whether to bring along some sanitizing wipes to wipe down the debit card when they hand it back. I’ve been doing this myself the past few weeks.

Meanwhile, I’m starting to realize how many times I must have used fast food drive-thru windows, if I know how each one handles your receipt.

In the days of a pandemic, when stepping through the door of any business now means mandatory face masks, even my parents see the appeal of drive-thru windows. And debit cards. And sanitizing wipes.

Stay safe out there, Dad.

I vote for better weather!

So… today I voted. Yay me! And if you voted, yay you!

Even if the weather is horrible (and in western Pennsylvania, it often is), I never miss an election. Never in my forty years of voting. Not even a primary. Certainly not a general election. I’ve used absentee ballots when necessary. I’ve gone in snow, hail, and rain (like today).

Not my actual polling place, but the spirit is right…

Today’s voting in my ward involved paper ballots for the first time.

For many years I used old-fashioned mechanical voting machines, with those cool curtains I opened and closed with a lever, which made me feel like the Wizard of Oz. I loved voting with those machines.

Actual photo of me voting in the eighties…

Then I got married and moved to a different county, where we used these computer-type voting machines with folded-out privacy panels. Now voting felt more like I was a Jeopardy! contestant scribbling the question to that Final Jeopardy answer.

Don’t copy off me, mister!

Fast-forward to a bunch of complaints about hacking, and some shady circumstances surrounding ballots being waylaid on their way to being counted… and today I walked into my polling place to find those paper ballots.

When I arrived, there were only two other people voting … and about six poll workers chatting. One of the poll workers was wearing green fuzzy slippers. They looked like these, only dirtier.

Picture a pair of these after they’d been dragged through a ditch.

Now, I realize it’s a long day for these poll workers, but… old fuzzy slippers? Even I—the night owl slackingest slacker in the entire state of Pennsylvania—exchanged the sweats and slippers for real jeans, a real bra, and a real nice top (and my Converse Chucks) to go vote. And nobody even saw me except those six poll workers and the two other people voting.

Well, plus that woman out front stuffing propaganda into my fists. (Thanks, lady, but if I’m going into a polling place and I’m still being swayed by printed postcards, I haven’t done my research very well. Still, it was a lovely gesture, and I’m glad you got to see my Chucks.)

The poll worker taking my name handed me an “I Voted!” sticker.

Then another poll worker handed me the paper ballot in a folder and a second “I Voted!” sticker. I asked him if that meant I got to vote twice. He blinked at me.

I said, “Oh yeah, right. This isn’t Chicago. Sorry.” He blinked at me again.

I sat in one of the little privacy cubicles and took the paper ballot out of the blue folder. In my forty years of voting, I’d never used paper ballots before. These weren’t of the “hanging chad” variety, though. Instead, we had to color in these little jellybean-shaped ovals with a pen.

So now I’m having PTSD symptoms of taking the SATs in the seventies. “Color them in thoroughly or they won’t count!” The only thing missing was the #2 pencil.

Still, it was a straightforward ballot, and I’d done my homework and knew who I was going to vote for. Despite the school test flashbacks, it was a fairly painless procedure.

Once I was done voting, one of the poll workers slid the paper into this contraption that looked kinda like a fax machine, and whoosh! It was gone!

Image is an approximate representation of the fax machine… I mean, ballot-catcher thing.

The skeptic in me wondered if the machine wasn’t, in fact, a paper shredder because I’m from the minority party around here. But I bit my lip and said nothing.

Anyway, I got to vote for lots of stuff. There still weren’t any referendum questions about Daylight Saving Time, though. So, all my dog-owning, toddler-raising friends must suffer for another year. We night owls don’t even notice when the clocks switch. We’re either awake anyway or still sleeping.

I hope those of you in areas with elections voted today. Participating in a democratic process isn’t perfect (hey, we’re all sinners, what did you expect?), but it’s still a lot better than all the alternatives.

If you haven’t voted yet, GO! There’s still time, even here on the East Coast!

Yoo hoo! Is this thing on?

I have been chained to my desk so long now that I’m starting to feel like a character in a depressing Charles Dickens novel. If a bunch of orphans in ratty clothes start gathering around me and singing in Cockney accents, I’ll know it’s time to find a way out of this home office.

Until then, though, let me do a brief run-down on my summer:

1. editing The Tell-Tale Heart Attack to death. It’s the second novel in The Red Ink Mysteries series. It nearly gave me a heart attack just trying to finalize this project and get it out the door. But, as of last week, OUT the door it went! If you haven’t read the first book, The Scarlet Letter Opener, that’s a fun place to start. I cut my teeth on mystery writing with that first one—and it’s kind of “mystery lite,” for lack of a less derogatory term. This second book was a lot more fun to write. Half the time even I didn’t know whodunnit. (Oh, that first book smells like it’s time to go on sale. Be on the lookout for that sale in a week or two.)

2. going on yet another cruise with the hubster. He wanted to enter Carnival’s big Grand Blackjack Tournament to see what that’s like, and since he won a free entry back in December, well, there we were, on another cruise ship in May. Great fun … but not a good time of year for me to be away from the desk for a week. (You know, the one I’m currently chained to.)

3. attending the St. Davids Christian Writers’ Conference in June. The yearly trek to Grove City, Pa., was (as usual) like a big writer-family reunion. Crazy-good fun with crazy-good people. As a board member, I had a lot of tasks to complete before conference started, including doing the booklet layout in time to have printed copies ready to take with me. There’s nothing quite like late nights, jazzed up on caffeine, gathering faculty data and troubleshooting layout issues with Amazon! I’m kidding: there are a LOT of things just like it, but most of them involve torture or stints in hell. And speaking of typesetting …

4. typesetting books for everybody but me. It’s a good thing I enjoy typesetting book interiors, because I’ve been doing those in my sleep lately. Some were for friends (we’re all debuting new books at Beaver County BookFest next month). Others were for a great cause and hobby of mine: TYPEWRITERS. You can pick up these amazing TYPEWRITTEN anthologies of what a non-digital world might look like here: Paradigm Shifts (which happens to also contain a story of mine) and Escapements. Both books are bargain-basement-priced, in order to get them into as many hands as possible. These projects were a labor of love. And although I thoroughly enjoyed working on them, squeezing these projects in after that crazy cruise was the result of copious amounts of caffeine and lots of loud grunge music at all hours. 

5. outlining and planning six new, shorter books in an upcoming new cozy mystery series, under a pen name! It’s been great fun finding a voice through my alter ego, Muriel Preston, who apparently writes cozies (shorter ones than I’ve been writing, so they’ll be churned out a lot faster). Her first series will be the Totally Tech series. Six covers ready to go!

      
6. heading back east soon for a few days of visiting family and outlining the six Muriel Preston cozies. Apparently I’m going to unchain myself from this desk, then drive six hours to the other end of Pennsylvania, only to chain myself to a completely different desk. Hey, whatever works! I love road trips. 


Once the autumn kicks in (not a moment too soon for me), things don’t slow down. I’m staring at Beaver County BookFest in early September, the AAUW Kitchen Tour in late September, a trip to West Virginia for a big book festival in early October (as an attendee this time), the yearly gathering of typewriter nerds (also in West Virginia) in late October, a few board meetings, and …

wait …
wait …

WHAT YEAR IS IT??

Who is Muriel Preston?

She’s younger than I am.
She’s prettier than I am.
And thinner. Much thinner.
She has gorgeous long hair, flawless skin, beautiful blue eyes, and keeps her nails long but still manages to type a lot faster than I do.

She drinks espresso shots throughout the day, listens to smooth jazz, used to be a chain-smoker until she quit cold-turkey about ten years ago, and joins the gym every January, though she stops showing up at all by March.

She’s been married—twice—but both times realized the guy was just too big a distraction from her work. Each of the men wasn’t surprised when she left. They’re all still good friends, and on rare occasions she’ll take them both out to dinner or a movie. At the same time. Then they all get creeped out about it and don’t have any contact for at least six months.

She is an enigma wrapped in a conundrum.
I, on the other hand, am a conundrum wrapped in bacon.

So, who is this mysterious Muriel Preston?

Well, okay… she’s me.

Starting this winter, the not-so-mysterious, nothing-like-me, completely fictitious Muriel Preston will start churning out light, short cozy mysteries. Just because she can.

My own cozy mystery series, The Red Ink Mysteries, is now officially two books long. (The Tell-Tale Heart Attack is finally available, folks.) The third book, Charlotte’s Website, is due out by Christmas.

But our new friend Muriel? She’ll be churning ’em out a lot faster. She has nothing better to do, after all. She lives for her work. Lucky for me.

Her first series, the Totally Tech Series, will contain five separate quick reads. I’ll update here as these become available. For now, take a gander at her tentative titles:

Fifteen Seconds of Fame…

I realize the saying is usually “fifteen minutes of fame,” but in my case, it was closer to fifteen seconds. Give or take two seconds. I wasn’t exactly timing it. I was too busy floating in a surreal world of Cloud Nine Dreams Come True.

My friend Amy and I were minding our own business in the front row of “Weird Al” Yankovic’s Strings Attached concert here in Pittsburgh last night. I had already warned Amy that I would sing along with every single song, unapologetically. It’s just how I roll. And, I did. Every. Single. Word. Of Every. Single. Song. 

I’d given Amy homework before the concert: memorize both “The Saga Begins” and “Yoda,” because Al does those two songs as an encore at every concert and everyone sings along. And he did not disappoint us. The audience sang along on all the choruses (and most of the verses) of both songs. First “The Saga Begins” …

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(Photo courtesy of @AmyJMable)

Then “Yoda.” Near the end of “Yoda,” Al turned the microphone to the audience and told us to sing. And we all belted out a chorus of “Yoda” together with gusto.

Then, without warning—with his accordion still strapped to his chest and the microphone in his hand—he knelt down and crept over the wires at the front of the stage. I could see him headed my way with that microphone sticking out as the audience wrapped up its group-chorus… and… and

Oh my gosh… was he headed toward ME with that thing??

Then, he yelled into the microphone, “NOW JUST HER!” and pointed it right at my nose. I saw my life flash before my eyes as I used that split-second to decide whether to curl up and die in an introverted heap, or to boldly go where I had never gone before (that is, singing solo in front of 3,000 strangers, right in front of my favorite musician ever).

Should I belt out an entire chorus of “Yoda” all by myself? Or should I live in regret and despair forever? Guess which one I chose. No, really, guess. I’ll wait.

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Have you guessed yet?

image1

I even did my own conducting at the end…

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It was perhaps the most glorious fifteen seconds of my life. And I might even include the births of several of my children and at least one of my weddings in that assessment. But I won’t say which ones.

Poor Amy froze. Although she’d been surreptitiously taking a picture here and there (just like everyone around us), there just wasn’t time for her to unfreeze, get her phone ready, and snap a picture.

So where did these candid pictures come from? Well, you see, there was this VIP after-party…

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…where we all chatted and made new friends while we waited to get our photo taken with Al. There was classical music playing and there were battery-operated candelabras on the tables. Stormtroopers and Darth Vader entertained us.

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Al even bought us all pizza!

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Meanwhile, I was teasing poor Amy about having not captured my moment of glory for posterity. (She endured it with grace. I would’ve smacked me into next Tuesday, but Amy is lovely and forgiving, unlike me.) She began asking around while we were in line for our photo op, and since “Weird Al” fans are some of the nicest people I’ll ever meet, we found someone further down the front row who had taken three photos of my fifteen seconds of fame, one Jeff McClelland by name. (That’s one picture every five seconds for all you fellow English majors out there.)

Keep reading. It gets weirder.

I exchanged cell phone numbers with a beautiful friend of Jeff’s, and she said she’d text me the photos today. And… she did. And… I squealed with delight.

And… it turns out Mr. McClelland designed the AWESOME Pittsburgh concert poster for this tour (all VIPs received a 16×24 copy of this poster, individually numbered), and mine will be framed and hanging in my office by the end of this week. It’s a great mix of “Weird Al” Yankovic meets Andy Warhol.

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[@JeffMcClelland]

I need to keep thanking Jeff McClelland (and his friend Brianne [@DellaandLila], who was the catalyst for these photos to get to me and who, as it turns out, is a children’s book author—see? I told you it got weirder), but I don’t think there is enough gratitude in the world for going the extra mile to get these to me.

And, of course, thank you to Mr. Yankovic, for not only entertaining us last night, but for providing me with decades of entertainment that got me through some very dark times. You, sir, are a gem.

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Gray Hair Everywhere…

It took me a while, but I eventually resigned myself to my graying hair. The hair on my head, at least. In fact, now I get comments even from hairstylists that my cool little gray (read: white) streak in the front looks great. One woman even asked if I colored it that way on purpose. I tried not to snort on her. Really, I tried.

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Her comment was a bit extreme, but hey, even a thinly veiled compliment is worth latching onto at my age.

Yup, I was owning my gray, which I had earned over the course of what seemed like two separate lifetimes. I hadn’t been carded at a bar or casino in years (read: decades), so who was I trying to fool? (That was a rhetorical question. I wasn’t foolin’ anybody.)

The fatal blow to my Clairol Nice ‘N Easy days came when a pastor friend mentioned a sermon in which he quoted Proverbs 16:31: “Gray hair is a crown of glory; it is gained in a righteous life” (ESV).

Well, I wasn’t so sure I qualified for that “righteous life” bit, or that I wanted any sort of crown at all, but I had to ask myself: Why was I still coloring my hair? What was I trying to prove? I couldn’t think of one good reason to continue. Not the money. Not the chemicals. Not the hassle of worrying about roots growing out.

So, I stopped. And it was gloriously liberating.

Fast-forward a few more years to that morning from hell.

One morning I discovered that the only thing worse than waking up to find a few gray hairs on your head is waking up to find a few gray hairs up your nose.

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And where I saw that one hair, others began to follow.

NOW what was I going to do? After a futile Google search for “nose hair color” (apparently Nice ‘N Easy doesn’t have a tiny package for nose hair, although their R&D department is missing a lucrative opportunity here, if you ask me), I ran options through my mind. I saw only two:

  1. Buy a pair of tiny nose-hair scissors and learn how to nosescape, pronto. Knowing my history of clumsiness (I have had more stitches in my head than Frankenstein’s monster), I immediately nixed this idea. It could only end badly, with me probably snipping the end of one nostril like I was trying to recreate the digging of the Panama Canal on my face.
  2.  Buy a nose-hair trimmer.

Oh, good grief. Had it really come to this?

It hadn’t hit me that I was getting older when I turned 50. It hadn’t bothered me when songs from my teen years started showing up on the oldies station. It hadn’t concerned me when I realized capris were invented for seriously middle-aged women… and that I owned more than a dozen pairs that I wore in a regular rotation from April through October. And it hadn’t worried me when AARP started sending me solicitations in the mail every two or three days, knowing eventually I was going to succumb to that offer of a free tote bag (read: another tote bag, in my case).

Nope. I lived through all of those things and never really thought of myself as old. But that nose-hair trimmer I now had to purchase sent me careening downhill emotionally.

Thankful for discreet online purchases, plus Amazon’s generic and ubiquitous boxes, I ordered a nose-hair trimmer and dashed up to the privacy of the upstairs bathroom when it arrived.

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I was being more secretive about this than a teenage boy rifling through his dad’s sock drawer. But, I soldiered on, reading the directions carefully before firing up this small missile of doom. I’d read some of the comments on this device on Amazon’s site, and they were both hilarious and informative. And they probably saved me a lot of weeping and gnashing of teeth.

My one piece of advice for using any nose-hair trimmer (especially while the batteries are fresh and the thing is making noises like a Boeing 747) is to ALWAYS KEEP IT MOVING. Be slow. Be careful. Be gentle. But ALWAYS KEEP IT MOVING. Do not linger in one area of either nostril for too long, even if there is a hotbed of blindingly white hairs there. If you hover in one spot too long, these things will sense your fear and latch onto twenty hairs at once like it’s a tug of war for their lives… and they will not back down. It’ll feel like your brain is being yanked out through your nose.

And let me say, these devices could probably do it, if you piss them off enough. You’ve been warned.

Is it worth the painful lessons learned to be able to leave the house without a proboscis full of pearly white hairs? Yes, indeed.

Have I gotten over the fact that gray hairs can pop up anywhere now that I’m rushing headlong toward sixty? Not really.

But at least that last area to go gray remains discreetly hidden from public view. And, even after that one episode of Sex and the City, no, Nice ‘N Easy doesn’t make hair color for that, either. I checked.