The Chronicles Of Jessica

Paul and I are going up to New Jersey this weekend so I can meet his grandparents and spend some more time with my new family members. I decided it would be nice to bring them a framed photo of us from the wedding, since they weren't able to be there, so I took a photo over to a local lab and had them do three 5 x 7's. They turned out terribly; we both look totally blurry and I have these red blotches all over my neck. And it cost me $9! I don't know why the guy didn't tell me that the resolution of the file wasn't good enough to support a 5 x 7 enlargement, but he didn't, and this is one of those situations where I'm not really sure I'm in a position to demand a refund. It's not exactly his fault, but it's not exactly cool, either.

It's got me thinking about other times that money has just been completely and utterly wasted, which is a depressing line of thought if you have no sense of humor about yourself (fortunately, mine is quite healthy.) Following, my top five.

1. Sculptured Nails. I got these when I was just out of college. I have always had bad nails and I thought it would be so much fun to be able to have these long polished nails with which I could gesture grandly. I guess I had them about a year, and you have to get them "filled in" every week or so which costs about $20, so I probably sunk several hundred dollars into that enterprise. Which would be okay if I didn't look back on pictures of myself and decide that I looked like Cruella Deville with these fake talons tacked onto the tips of my fingers.

2. Home Leg Waxing Kit, seen on infomercial. The wax didn't take the hair off my legs; I was lucky I had any skin left in the end, as a matter of fact.

3. AOL. AOL drives me up the wall, it's so Internet for Dummies. You can almost always get the same or better service for less, and they suck you in like a cult and won't let you out again no matter what you do. I kept calling to try and get it cancelled and they kept saying, "Well why don't we just give you another month free, see if you change your mind." That's like offering me a month of free celery: I don't want it, I'm not going to use it and eventually it will turn against you because I'll tell everyone I know that you're a stupid celery-pusher who can't take no for an answer and will never leave me alone.

4. Cello and cello lessons. I took the cello up for the second time in Chicago after about a 12 year hiatus. I used to play in the school orchestra in middle school and I wasn't very good then, either. I quit because at the end of the year we had our big concert and the girls were required to wear a skirt. When I questioned the wisdom of wearing a skirt while playing the cello, this know-it-all dude who played viola told me in front of the whole class, "Wear thick underwear!" In retrospect it's not a bad line but hey, I was 13. I'm sure I thought the advancing maturity of my years would improve my abilities. It didn't. And it was a pain in the ass to take on the subway.

5. Beeper. I got this beeper when I had my first agent, because they had to be able to get in touch with me at all times. (Pfft.) I couldn't afford a cell phone at the time, but as I look back on it now, smoke signals would have been a more effective method of communicating. You could leave a voicemail on the service but only up to 30 seconds and there was no way to save the message so if you missed any information you were just out of luck. Plus you had to make a call to retrieve the message or to call back anyone who beeped you, so I was always running around trying to get change and find a payphone. Thus making it a waste of time AND money! Brilliant.