Genius solutions for your concert and party needs. But first, we make fun of Joyful Noise starring Dolly Parton.

Hello, Dear Readers!

Yesterday my daughter had to get stitches in her leg because some kid at Chinese camp had broken glass in her backpack.  It wasn’t a malicious incident, but this just goes to remind everyone that even though children can do amazing feats like speak Chinese, solve tough math problems, and wow us with their expert navigation of television remote controls, sometimes they still think like little kids.

One good thing is that the doctor and nurses never even questioned that it might have been a safety issue on my part—you know, how they make sure they don’t need to call child protective services.  When a Caucasian kid’s story starts out with, “Well, I was at Chinese camp…”, it’s so random that it’s totally believable.

After our tough day—she had stitches and I missed my afternoon mug of tea—we decided to indulge in cookies and watch the new Dolly Parton & Queen Latifah movie in bed last night.  The flick is called Joyful Noise, and it’s a love story, choir competition, feud between Dolly and Latifah, and a touching tale of redemption all wrapped up in one.  Like one of those gross appetizers of tortillas rolled up with cream cheese and lunch meat.

As a TexMex and lunch meat purist, don't even get me started on this abomination of ingredients. Remembering the way these cold bites of gooey disgrace stuck to the roof of my mouth makes me shudder, as did Joyful Noise.

Joyful Noise is the kind of movie where Dolly’s choir robe was really fitted up around her boobs to make her look like a Barbie doll, but everybody else had on normal, baggy robes.  I feel like the director probably wanted Dolly to wear a standard robe, but Dolly had it in her contract that she could wear an hourglass robe and be the only blonde in the entire movie.

The plot is exactly what you’d expect: Latifah is an unsung hero, young lovebirds get together, a teen’s Asperger’s syndrome is pretty much cured, and Dolly breaks out a shotgun.  The writers added surprise by having unlikely characters do the splits when you least anticipate it.  Confession of love…splits!…face that says character hasn’t spread her legs that far in years.

That’s the kind of movie you’re missing out on.  I might have even oversold it a bit.

Now that you’re caught up on the latest in romantic comedy horrors, let’s explore a product that you should be aware of, just in case.

If you like to partake in alcoholic beverages AND you like to go places where that’s frowned upon (funerals) or where alcohol is expensive (anywhere that requires admission fees), my friend V has found a solution for you.  It’s called the Wine Rack.  You just fill up the plastic lining of this handy sports bra with alcohol!  If you’re a woman you’ll look like Dolly, and if you’re a man you’ll look like John Travolta with his fleshy man-boobs.  Either way, you’ll never be questioned by authorities.

You can find this on Amazon.com and at every Kenny Chesney concert.

However, I have to warn you of the dangers of sneaking alcohol into places.  My friends and I once filled water bottles with vodka and smuggled them into an outdoor concert.  It seemed like a good idea, but it lead us down the path of bad decisions.

My tipsy friend danced with an old dude who had moobs. She would have never done that without vodka, mainly because we never would have been at a Steve Miller Band concert without vodka.

If you’re afraid that you’ll get caught wearing the Wine Rack or you need extra storage space for your alcohol, I have another convenient solution for you of Ikea-level genius.  You can turn yourself into a Human Decanter, like the drug addict I heard about from a doctor friend.  The Human Decanter hires himself out for entertainment.  What’s his party trick, you ask?  He uses a catheter—usually used in hospitals to drain urine out of people—except in reverse.  He fills his bladder up with wine.  Sounds incredibly painful, right?  He’s on lots of drugs.

Once his bladder is full of wine, HE WILL PEE IT INTO A GLASS FOR YOU.

You should ponder that for a moment.

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The spigot turns itself on automatically at the release of a sphincter!

Whichever method you use to sneak in wine, it’s sure to taste extra classy.

You know, that sounded snotty, but I don’t want to pretend I’m above drinking body-temperature wine.  If someone ever forces me to see Joyful Noise again and contraband wine is my only option, I’ll drink it no matter what private parts it drains out of.