Oh gods am I in trouble. There's a cute little appliance out there and I want it.

Remember Marabel Morgan's "Total Woman"? I think she was the one who advised wives to wrap themselves in saran wrap for excitement when their husbands came home from work. Just for fun. (leading either to suffocation for those less handy, or for "hubby" to think she'd made him a really big sandwich for dinner? Oh hell… ANYway…

I sorta offset MM by being a "total feminist" and one teeny bit of that is that I don't see appliances as things to faunch after (trans.: to desire, to dream about). I found it close to obscene to hear about men who would buy their women new irons for Christmas, husbands who would proudly offer up the new electric knife for her birthday (no comment here) or the fathers who thought that an appropriate mother's day gift might be a blender, or a vacuum, or even a dishwasher. I KNOW all the explanations/excuses/arguments about "how it would make your life easier, sweetie!" and it still makes me gag. Yeah, IF she asked for it specifically, but as far as I'm concerned, it STILL should come with something Just For Her. It's just icky to me, okay?

So Stu and I are at "Bite of Seattle " on Saturday and I fall in love with an appliance. It's small, it's cute, it WOULD make my life easier. It gets worse. I want the pink one.

The Bite has gotten a bit too sales/corporate/businessy the past few years; like what hasn't but it used to be ALL about local restaurants and food businesses. Fifty or seventy chances to try someone's food, fund-raising for Food Lifeline or other charities, things to win, maybe, but it was FOOD oriented. The number of participants has declined, we're pretty sure, but at least this year there weren't the number of chain/corporate eateries we saw 2 years ago. We didn't go last year, as I recall, a combination of lack of energy, feeling like not spending the money and oh come on, RED LOBSTER? For the record, the fish was pretty damn good and Murray now has a little pet lobster, but….

But this year they had a "home show" (in miniature the sort of thing that comes annually to an exhibition center) which didn't even focus on food necessarily; the "CANstruction" entries (big displays made of packaged/canned food that was later donated; you could pay to vote for your fave and the money went to charity as well) were down to THREE entries from what I think were 8 or more before and some of the booths were selling stuff that had NOTHING to do with food. The crafts stuff? That's different; it doesn't have to be food related and it wasn't and that's fine (ok, so yeah, I bought some stuff) but man, the Bite has changed, and not for the better.

So we've finished our main effort (for the past few years we've done "the Alley" which is a set of 8 restaurants, all offering a selection, for one price and again, it's a fund-raiser) and were headed out to see things for a little while, before it got so crowded that I was in tears, and that's when we saw it. The little robot vacuum booth. The Roombo, I'm pretty sure it's called, is about the size (a bit larger) than a frisbee and yes, is round. And it comes in fancy and plain versions (the fancy does things like recharge faster, and has a wall mount you can stick it in and doodads. I dunno. ) The basic one was red, and that appealed to me too - for one thing, it doesn't get lost. And then I saw it, running around the display like a puppy. The pink Roombo. Not Barbie-pink, light pink. And all my hair stood up and I thought "euuuu". Then I looked at the paperwork. And oh. My. God. It's a fundraiser. It's the robot vacuum that raises money for the Komen Breast Cancer Foundation. And get this, we are NOT talking a symbolic percentage of a measly dollar; the paperwork says that this one costs $180 and for every one sold, $36 (that's 20 fucking percent) goes to the Komen people. Awwwwwwww.

Oh man I have so GOT to snap out of this.