– even if you don’t follow them.
do not read beauty magazines, they will only make you feel ugly.

that first one is pretty self-explanatory. though if you’re a guy, you might need to be told another couple dozen more times in your life before it sinks in. around our house, i’m usually the one that reads the directions so that when he’s over there cursing and sweating i can quietly interject a “hey, how about you try such-and-such” or “maybe if you insert tab a into slot b…” but there’s nothing about that scenario any one of you aren’t familiar with.

more relevant to me is how much this little snippet reminds me of my dad, and advice he used to give me. i was raised by my mom and dad, along with my siblings. i was one of those lucky ones that had my whole family all my growing up years. but contrary to how my mother seems to remember things in her mid-sixties hindsight, it was really dad that was always keeping us occupied – teaching us things, making us work with him, making sure we did our homework. i used to love to spend time with him whatever it was he was doing. whether it was tinkering around in the garage or covered in sawdust for one of his many woodworking projects out in the shop. regardless of what he was doing, he was never afraid to read the directions. didn’t bother him a bit if he thought he knew how to do whatever it may be he was doing, he was going to stop and read the directions, just in case. that was a kind of mantra he lived by – just in case. he used to have some cash wrapped up in foil and wrapped around the pipes under his bathroom sink “just in case.” every vehicle we owned had at any given time a jack, flares, a mini-air compressor, brake fluid, washer fluid and (when we lived in the foothills and rocky mountains) chains – just in case. before i was allowed to drive a car, i had to be able to change my own oil, swap out a flat tire, replace any and all lights, refill any and all fluids, and for heaven’s sake pump my own gas – just in case. and one of my favorites, among the many that have helped me to this day, is to always carry at least a $20 bill tucked away in my wallet – just in case.

dad felt that being informed and being prepared was the best way to go through life; getting coddled and taken care of then tossed out into the world to make it on their own was no way to raise a child. so he taught us things just in case. and he told us to read the directions, so we’d know.

and as far as that last part goes, well, every woman should have this engraved somewhere in her mind. from the time she’s old enough to start comparing herself to others; which, let’s face it, is about the time she’s only five or six these days – do not read beauty magazines, they will only make you feel ugly. maybe in my lifetime, we can finally eradicate all those shitty magazines. if not in my lifetime, i hope in my niece’s. sadly though, i doubt it’ll happen. for some reason, people just seem to give a shit about them.