Brown Sludge

Pretty Jamie Gets Brown Sludged

March 17th, 2006

Beware the “Girlfriend Dirty Look Of Death” - It will drain your essence.

My girlfriend, Pretty Jamie, suffers my militancy about Brown Sludge the best way she knows how. She’s long since gotten used to my tirades about how corporatism and consumerism cheapens and degrades all things – and about how it chews up authenticity and digests it until it reappears out of the other end as Brown Sludge.

She gets it.

That’s not to say I haven’t caught her occasionally rolling her eyes at me when I’m really on about something – and start with the fire and brimstone preaching about corporate greed and what the big-boxes are doing to our community – and the value of Small, Local, and Independent over Large, Global , and Collectivist.

You see… Pretty Jamie isn’t just pretty. She’s smart too. And while she understands what I’m trying to say – and why I feel the way I do – she’s also a little suspicious about the whole thing. Problem is… she’s one of the most… uhm… “frugal” women I’ve ever met. (I once accidentally called her “cheap”, and let me tell you – when I woke up from that head-trauma a few days later – I resolved not to call her that any more).

To Pretty Jamie, it’s foolish to pay a penny more for something than you absolutely have to. Saying that Pretty Jamie is a “bargain hunter” is like saying the Antarctic is a little chilly sometimes. She has elevated sale shopping to an Olympic Class sport – and God save your wretched hide if she catches you paying retail for any darned thing. To her – paying the sticker price on anything other than your standard non-negotiables like groceries and such is just… INSANE… and on those you better have a coupon.

She has this special look she gives you when she’s caught you buying something that isn’t on sale. You can actually feel your life’s essence drain from your body as it whithers under that look. Ever see the movie LifeForce? It’s horrible.

So… when I start on about Big Box Marts and the like – she adopts her “patient girlfriend” posture – and looks at me with her Big Beautiful Eyes and lets me rant. When I’m done she smiles sweetly and informs me in her best 1-900-JAMIE voice that she’ll give up her Sam’s Club card when I pry it loose from her beautifully manicured cold dead fingers. Then she asks me if I’m done with my sale flyers from the weekend paper.

And so it always goes.

So… earlier this week she calls me.

She’s got that “unhappy” tone in her voice. I’m worried. When Pretty Jamie is unhappy, sometimes bad things happen to people.

I carefully ask what’s wrong.

“I’ve been Brown Sludged.” She proclaims.

My heart sort of skips a beat.

I ask her to explain.

She explains that there was an on-line magazine that she was fond of. Well, not really fond of, more like really attached to. As in pretty much in love with. As in reads voraciously every day. It had recipes, and health and diet advice, beauty and fashion segments, relationship advice and gobs and gobs of those ubiquitous “quizzes”. It also carried a rolling series of what Pretty Jamie calls “heaving buxom” romance diaries that she had been reading for years and was… well… addicted to.

I was aware of her affair with this magazine. More than once I’ve been sitting across the table during a nice evening out – watching those Big Pretty Eyes – and trying not to get caught stealing glances at Pretty Jamie’s obvious other charms – when the skies would go dark and storm clouds would gather on the horizon. This always began with the statement… “I was reading my magazine today on-line, and there was this question on one of the quizzes…” this always struck terror in my heart. These conversations always end badly. For me.

I ask her what’s wrong with her magazine.

“It was bought by a big corporation, and they changed it all around. Now it’s formatted all wrong and it’s hard to read and the stories aren’t the same.”

I can tell by her voice that she’s more than a little frustrated.

Pretty Jamie doesn’t do “frustrated”.

I’m careful here. I guess I could rub it in a little bit – but – I don’t. Fact of the matter is that I’m genuinely sorry for her. She enjoyed that magazine a lot. To her, it was something she enjoyed and got a lot out of, and looked forward to reading after a long day at the office. It was authentic. It had value. And now it wasn’t the same.

In the classic fish-bigger-fish corporate greed-grab something unique and enjoyable had been lost.

“Brown Sludge.” She repeats, dejectedly.

“Indeed” I say.

And then she drops the stunner.

“I got on-line – on the feedback page, and I let them know what I thought about the format change, and… guess what?”

I ventured a guess “You weren’t the only one there?”
“Exactly!” She exclaims. “lots of people are mad about it too.”

I resist the urge to do cart-wheels. She gets it. I think now she understands my militancy a little better. Perhaps. She even showed a little herself when she went on line and got vocal about not liking what had happened.

I’m encouraged by the idea that not only does she understand the idea of Brown Sludge, but that the idea might be catching.

We’ll see.

“What can I do to make it better for you?” I ask.

“Crab cakes, and something chocolate.” She shoots back. No hesitation. No pause. No ‘thinking’. Just an instantaneous reflex. Like when the doctor bumps your tendon with that little hammer.

Hey… it’s a start.

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