When Good Books Get Bad Names

There are two books that have changed my life but which I have to hide because their titles are awful. Embarrassing, counter-Kelly, verging on sexist. So bad that while I've been meaning to write this blog for years, ultimately I just haven't been able to spell them out. Even as I type this, I wonder if I'll ever push the "Publish Post" button. Even as I continue to read, and reread these books - hidden inside the covers of "The Economist."

Title One - This pivotal relationship book should have been titled, "Don't knock yourself out being nice, it's counter-productive and will only end badly for the both of you." but instead the author titled it Why Men Love Bitches: From Doormat to Dreamgirl - A Woman's Guide to Holding Her Own in a Relationship

Title Two - While I knew my relationship with food bordered on obsessive, Women Food and God: An Unexpected Path to Almost Everything explains why. Very simply and without really talking about God at all, Geneen Roth lays clear a very Buddhist path to understanding compulsive behavior and how learning to be present in those compulsions is the way to awareness.

So - if you need a self-help book about women, men and/or food - I recommend them. 

Mattress Shopping

"And" she said, "we offer free, no-interest financing for up to two years!"

"Wow," I thought that would be a deal if I were buying a bike, a kayak, a house or a car, but no, we were looking at mattresses. You know, the kind that go on beds, the kind you sleep on. And yes 3 months of every year are spent sleeping. (At least that's what the posters on the walls said) but I'd been sleeping just fine for month/years on $300 IKEA special and was now in the midst of major culture/sticker shock.  Do people really pay $3999.00 for a mattress?

Apparently they do. And reading mattress reviews online, they also apparently often come to regret it. And hey, how well can you sleep after realizing you've been taken to the cleaners?


And so it was, as it often is, that we turned to Amazon.com. That meca in the cloud for folks who don't like shopping, who been burned a few times by ebay and aren't in craigslist kinda mood. There we found the Queen 12" Thick Therapeutic Memory Foam Mattress with 5" 5LB Viscoelastic Memory Foam, which had lots of great reviews. We also found a SLEEP TITE by Malouf Mattress Protector - 100% Waterproof-Eliminates Dust Mites -15 Year Warranty for $15.00 as opposed to the mattress store must-have cover for $150.00.

Does amazon also sell cars?