For a strange reason,* over the past year I have taken several trips to the Main Line Center for Laser Surgery in Ardmore, PA, to get a tattoo removed from my upper arm. For those unfamiliar with Ardmore, it’s a cute and snooty little moneyed town about 20 minutes outside Philadelphia. It’s the kind of place where the high schoolers play lacrosse, and where you should only go into the Starbucks if you’re prepared to hold the door for the four Lululemoned 30-something moms pushing Bugaboos who will inevitably come in right behind you. There is a Lily Pulitzer shop. There is a dog store called the Bark Avenue Boutique that sells homemade dog treats. There is a local-organic-sustainable fast food place called Sweetgreen but not a Burger King. Money Magazine put it on its list of Best Places for the Rich and Single.

The Main Line Center for Laser Surgery is in Suburban Square, the outdoor shopping center in the middle of the town. In addition to eradicating tattoos, it will help you rid yourself of dermatological insecurities such as sunspots, freckles, spider veins, rosacea, acne, and hair. At its helm is a doctor who appears regularly on local television news and in women’s magazines, and for good reason. The man is unflaggingly, almost off-puttingly animated, as if every moment of his day were the most exciting of his life. He shows a perplexing amount of interest in his patients’ jobs, lives, and hobbies, which I’m sure is very appealing to people who like talking about themselves but is horrible for those of us who would far rather divert attention back to our host than face the terrifying prospect of trying to string together articulate and interesting sentences about ourselves. Nevertheless, I find it very difficult not to like him, and when he tells me how tough I am because I sit calmly -- without the aid of numbing agents -- while he sears my skin with a laser, I always feel a little warm and fuzzy inside.

Those interested in learning more about the services available at the Main Line Center for Laser Surgery can pick up one of the 19-page glossy brochures sitting on a side table in the office’s waiting room (where you can also pick up a Werther’s Original and a Wintergreen Lifesaver). The brochure details different types of laser treatments and illustrates them with a combination of in-house before-and-after photos and stock images. Fittingly, my favorite such image is on the tattoo-removal page. Look at the picture in the bottom left-hand corner. The first sentence of the accompanying text reads, “We all make mistakes.”

Maybe it’s just me, but I'm pretty sure that in most cases people don't get all the way to half sleeves as part of a mistake.

*I was part of a study for a company that was developing a new type of tattoo ink. The idea was that they’d put tattoos on me and then laser them off. No one believes me when I cop to this. I don’t know why they’d think that I’d make it up -- I find it pretty embarrassing.

Time-wasting tactics

Many of us have jobs that can be boring. Those who can employ innovative methods of amusing themselves have the best chance of surviving these jobs. My friend and colleague Leslie should be commended for her abilities to kill time during her mind-numbing shift at the front desk of a quiet organic spa, a job that -- besides fielding the occasional client query about how to prepare one's pubic hair for one's first Brazilian wax -- consists almost entirely of dusting shelves, folding hand towels, and listening to the same pan flute & sitar CD on repeat for eight hours ... without internet access. Being stuck in this role is on par with being stuck in Dante's seventh circle of hell (the one where you float down a river of boiling blood and may be turned into a thorny bush that is fed on by Harpies).

Leslie improves upon her barbarous circumstances by using the day to create works of art that take product display to new levels, as seen here in a recent piece:



The Targeted Bio-Brightening Face Serum and Enlighten Skin Roll On sit side by side on a miniature wicker chair, upright and proud. Together but not touching, they are a comment on love, representing a strong partnership that will stand the test of time. Their own kind surrounded them, as bridesmaids and groomsmen would at a wedding and family members might during old age. The images and text interspersed throughout are reminiscent of the advertising and other outward influences these two will encounter during their lives and against which they must persevere. It is a beautiful demonstration of how radically overpriced skincare products can be about more than just consumerism. They can also be a rumination on the nature of relationships and time.

If you lack the artistic prowess of Leslie and do have Internet access at your boring job, may I direct you to this site, which is intended to be used as an online alarm clock. I highly suggest you instead use it to shock your colleagues by opening it on their computers when they step away and setting it to go off minutes after their expected return from the water cooler. The "Slayer Guitar" setting is a personal favorite.

Philadelphia sidewalks are full of poles to which people once affixed their horses while they went about their non-horse-riding business (you know, like getting their shoes cobbled). They're sort of like old-fashioned bike racks. Most of these posts are topped with sculptures of horse heads, thereby alerting passersby that they are specifically for horse parking:


A few, however, seem to be specifically for cat parking:


You can choose which post to use based on your own cat's demeanor. The post on the left is for outgoing and festive cats who enjoy wearing jewelry. The post on the right is for stoic cats who rarely deviate from meditative poses.

The post below is for parking one's pet pine cone, which is useful. After all, who among us hasn't experienced the frustration of a pine cone wandering off the second you turn your back on it?

Don't worry: I have found the Justin Bieber section of the magazine rack. (Side note: there is a magazine called "Yikes!")

It's no secret that a dog with a cone on its head is the best type of dog. The cone ups any dog's cute quotient 20 percent. This may seem a cruel thing to delight in: after all, that dog has no peripheral vision; he is probably confused about the presence of a giant bowl around his neck; he is recovering from some sort of painful injury or operation; he wants to lick his wounds and he's trying but he can't, he just can't! But hey, I can't help that it's fucking adorable. I'm just reporting the facts.

I present to you the cone-head dog to end all cone-head dogs. What is that thing? Why does it need to be so big and floppy? I don't care -- it's awesome. This dog is wearing the fancy Sunday church hat of dog cones, and he should be proud.

Biodegradable packing peanuts are pretty much the coolest things ever invented. For those of you unfamiliar with this wonderful bastardization of nature, a demonstration:


At first, we have a sink overflowing with what looks like normal styrofoam peanuts. Oh my! How will we get them out of there?



But with just a minute or two of running water, this happens:

They dissolve! They dissolve into a sticky, chunky mess and then dissolve into nothing and wash down the sink. It's kind of disgusting, but it's the most magical kind of disgusting.

Momness

It's always as surprise when I get a box in the mail from my mom. I generally know the bulk of what she's sending me -- things I bought when visiting Ohio that wouldn't fit in my suitcase, a dress that I asked her to snag from my old bedroom, something she got for me on vacation -- but she never fails to cram that box full of a motley assortment of free-gift-with-purchase extras, like a Splenda-packet-stuffed Ziploc freezer bag or stamps or toothpaste or a jacket she doesn't want anymore. When I opened my last package from her, the first thing I saw when I popped it open was this:



Can't read the note? Here:


Please note that these magazine pages have been carefully placed in a protective plastic slide. Linda, Janis, I love you both.