TikTok Superstore

I am obsessed with the TikTok Shop. Don’t ask me why. Maybe it’s because its like the frigging poor person’s Amazon or Sears and Roebuck (for some of the older peeps). It’s like window shopping and doom-scrolling all rolled into one. Amazing marketing technique, I must say, but then the advertisers know what we’re interested in based on our individual algorithms. Mine is so eclectic that I get tarot cards once minute, metal drywall anchors the next and fleeced lined leggings the third. I’m not ashamed to admit it, I have purchased a few things out of that shop and not just my woo woo stuff. I will say, that the clothes are pretty true to advertising - except the Halara leggings. Those will only give you an ass lift if you HAVE an ass. Sadly, I do not. Just saggy skin that if I wanted to, I could use as personal shopping bags (if I could do emojis, I would use the eye roll one here). And it’s not like I don’t exercise my glutes - I have and all it’s done is make my butt smaller, so when I saw the ass lifting, I wanted to try it.

I was painfully disappointed. I was excited to show them off to my boyfriend. I even reached in and lifted my butt cheek over the band like the girls on the ad said to. All it did was give my ass an extra wide crease instead of the normal tiny one that shows. It wasn’t flattering in the least. When my boyfriend arrived, instead of a kiss of welcome, he got the toddler version of me complaining about my ass. My boyfriend is a smart man and did what all smart men do. “Baby, you don’t need special leggings to have a nice ass. Your ass is perfect the way it is.” And he proceeded to show me how good it was with a well position spanking that lifted the fleshy part. I felt the jiggle and giggled gleefully. My butt had never jiggled when someone smacked it. My late husband tried for years after we had seen the Cartoon Network commercial signalling the start of Adult Swim and I lamented that my butt didn’t jiggle. Apparently it does…but only with Halara leggings; and that was the giddy conversation my boyfriend and I had for a good fifteen minutes. It’s a good thing he has experience with excitable children. Anyways, I will say, the Halara leggings, despite their selective butt lifting technology, are very comfortable and compressing. I have an apron - again, could turn it into a shopping bag - and while it doesn’t make my pooch completely disappear, it does slim and smooth the silhouette. I like the fact that it’s almost like a second skin. The fabric is soft and warm - sometimes too warm and that’s saying a lot coming from a self proclaimed lizard. I wore them under my dress pants for work during the colder time earlier this winter (December) and while it didn’t keep me from feeling the cold, it did delay it quite a bit. Long enough for my car to warm up, anyway. Because of those, I decided I would forgive the biased butt lifting mechanism and continue to deal with my saggy ass.

I had gotten dresses and sweaters off of the TikTok shop and they all fit well and such - they’re regular clothes. There’s really nothing captivatingly special about them. Except one sweater I absolutely adore. I’m kicking myself that I didn’t get more in different colors. This sweater shows off my girls! I wore that sweater so often last fall, everyone knew when my boyfriend was coming over. He had seen that sweater so often, he asked if I had other clothes. I retorted, “Why? They don’t stay on long enough,” and he just gave me his look and I told him I liked how the sweater looked. I shoved my boobs in his face and said, “It shows cleavage! Do you know how hard that is for a woman my age?!?” so loud, the next door neighbor heard and was laughing all the way back inside the her house. I think that was the day he discovered (and finally accepted) that when I am at home, inside or out, I have no filter. I don’t know why he wouldn’t think that. I’ve sent him plenty of pictures of me sunbathing on my deck (again, insert eyeroll emoji). Outside of the cleavage, the ribbing of the material looks well on me. It makes my little T-Rex arms look like big people’s arms. The material is soft, even after all the washings it’s been through, and not one single seam is stretched or ripped. It’s warm, and while not warm enough for the sub-zero temperatures it can get here, it’s perfect for inside the house - I keep mine at a balmy 70. The cat and I like it. The dog not so much, but it’s two against one, so he just sheds more.

Because the dog sheds more and hates being brushed, his fur (it’s more like hair actually) is prone to matting. Normally, I would just cut the bigger ones out, clip him short and let him look goofy for a while. This last time, he looked too goofy even for himself. My poor puppy was so embarrassed when he went outside. Never has this dog ever gone out to just do his business and come back in. Until I clipped all his mattings so he could get a proper bath. He looked like a chewed up tootsie roll on toothpicks someone used to clean out their teeth - his matting wasn’t in any symmetrical shape like it usually was. Then I noticed how long his nails were getting. The one thing my Buddy hates more than baths and getting brushed, is getting his nails clipped. He makes it so frigging difficult to do, that I get so frustrated that I don’t care - I wear jeans so he’s not tearing my legs up when he jumps. But my boyfriend on the other hand…yeah, Buddy likes to try an nut tap him. Before my boyfriend gets his pants back on. I don’t know how many times Buddy left more claw marks than I did. TIKTOK SHOP TO THE RESCUE!!! Got a two-in-one trimmer with a nail file for $12 and free shipping (I’m all about free shipping). The trimmers work well for the mats, even the really thick ones on Buddy’s legs (he was shedding and because he refused to allow me to brush, it was getting tangled and while he tried to “do it himself” by licking and biting at it - he was only making it worse), the trimmer went through it. Oh, not like butter, but for $12 I wasn’t expecting much. It was slow, which is what Buddy seemed to prefer. But that wasn’t why I bought them. I wanted the nail file. Now, I could’ve just gotten a Dremel and gone that route, but those are really loud and Buddy hates the sound of clippers so a Dremel would just be a ball-ache to deal with with him. The file from this two-in-one though, while not silent, it isn’t so loud your ears are hearing the pitch 10 minutes after you turn them off. I did Buddy’s front nails while he was sleeping on the couch next to me. His dew claw - one I don’t like to mess with because I always seem to either not clip enough and it grows into his leg; or I clip it too short and catch the quick and he bleeds like a stuck pig all the while looking at me like I’m the most despicable human being on the planet. He wouldn’t be wrong in that - the last time I clipped too much and hurt him, I cried for 20 minutes while hugging and rocking him telling him how sorry I was. I hate messing with that claw. And that would be where Buddy had the worst matting. I took the trimmers to the mat and the file to the claw all while Buddy was laying there like he was having his “spa day.” My boyfriend borrowed it for his dog. His dog hated the thing, but what my boyfriend could do, it was much simpler than regular clippers. Best 12 bucks I’ve ever spent.

FLEECED LINED TIGHTS. I mentioned I got dresses off of the shop. Well, again, I’m a lizard and even if it’s 60 degrees outside, it’s too cold for my legs to be bare. Or in hose. Or regular tights. So I was on the hunt for warmer leg coverings so I could wear my dresses when my boyfriend and I went out. My algorithm did not fail me. Nor did my phone, because I was talking to my boyfriend about it and hadn’t even started googling where to find such things. The next time I opened the app, there were dozens of ads for fleece lined tights - don’t tell me no one is “listening” through our phones. Fleeced lined tights. Without the “diaper butt” - whatever that means. I don’t think I will ever know, because the pairs I got? PERFECTION! ish. I’m 5’2” thereabouts (I’m getting older, and I’m slowly shrinking) so the leggings were a smidge too long. BUT! Because my boobs hang so low without a bra, I can basically turn the leggings into a strapless body suit! My boyfriend didn’t believe me - “Your boobs don’t hang that low.” Little did he know. I took my bra and shirt off when he went to the bathroom and when he came out, I showed him. If he thought I had no shame before, he certainly does now if his laughter was any indication. The next day, I popped those bad boys one, threw my dress pants over them and went to work. While I stayed blissfully warm all throughout my work day, my toes were not. The footie wasn’t fleece-lined like the legging part, which made sense because they were advertised and sold as tights. Cold toes wouldn’t be problematic ordinarily, however my toes have been frostbitten and I do have circulation issues tied to cold and emotional stress; so even though I wasn’t stressing, my toes were killing me because of the cold. I wore a pair of socks with the tights - nope. Made my toes even worse. Then I noticed it was the seam of the footie that was hitting one of my toes causing it to try and move away from the irritation; which in turn, led that toe to irritate it’s neighbor. I had two toes that looked like I was a leper or something. I took a pair of scissors and cut through the seams and haven’t had an issue since. I tried finding the legging form of these but I have yet to locate them - even from the shop I bought these from. My boyfriend, who doesn’t fully believe in the “woo-woos” suggested I use my tarot cards to find fleece lined leggings. He insisted he was kidding when I began explaining that’s not how tarot cards work and regaled him with how I’ve been wanting to get another deck.

Which leads me to this tale: I found another tarot deck. One that would help me with all the stuffs that’s significant with tarot; like yes/no answers, zodiac signs, meanings and the like. Seeing it on a card would make learning it less time consuming for me than going back and forth through my reference book. I’m also the kind of person to not just want one side of the story. A singular card, while having a general meaning, can have specific meanings for specific things. I wanted to see what those things were and if they’d be on the cards - or at least energetically. Those in the woo-woo will understand what I mean by that. Besides, my original deck was too nice to be taking outside during the nicer weather to do readings and most times, I want to be outside. Where its warm. And the sun is shining.

I am so looking forward to summer.

Anyhoo, I found another deck, added more stuff so I could get free shipping (like I said, I’m all about free shipping), and patiently waited. I was ecstatic when I got the email that it had been shipped the next day. I eagerly awaited the arrival. I even checked my post office box every day for a week. On the day it said it was delivered, it was a Saturday, so I figured it would be in my box on Monday morning. However, I felt a nidge to check the tracking from the company. If it was delivered, it would say “In post office box” or “In locker.” The email did not. It said “Delivered. Front Porch.” I went outside and looked. Nothing. I clicked the link that said it was delivered to my front porch. I was sent to FedEx’s website. I entered the tracking number and sure enough, there was a picture of a couple of boxes on what appeared to be a porch. Just not my porch.

Fuck my luck and fuck FedEx. NOT TO WORRY! I can just get some help through FedEx and get this resolved.

Have you ever been gaslit by a fucking mailing company’s automated assistance system? The damned thing kept insisting that my package was delivered on my front porch. I desperately wanted to take a picture of my front porch and type in, “Where in the fuck do you see goddamned wood planks?”

Clearly this is not my front porch, and while I don’t really care who in my town knows that I read tarot and do the “woo-woo” (they all know I’m odd), I would just rather not have the religious Reich goose-stepping onto my lawn. Unless they’re carrying torches and burn my house to the ground while me and my pets aren’t there - my insurance is paid in full and I’d be making bank.

…’Course with all the stuff I have in this house, they might want to reconsider, just sayin’…

ANYHOO! Despite the one irritation with the cards - and truly, that’s frigging FuckedEx’s fault and not the product or the seller’s (they may want to choose a different delivery service), I would recommend looking at the TikTok shop if you’re thinking about trying something, but don’t want to be overly invested in it. It will give you an idea of what you’re really looking for and you might find exactly what you need without scrolling through unentertaining hours on Amazon or just watching television or YouTube. TikTok, through it’s algorithm, tailors the advertisements based on what you watch - so, it’s stuff you would most likely be interested in. Just don’t say anything about insurance. You’ll be slammed with a bunch of Liberty Mutual “Limu Emu…and Doug” commercials (admit it, you sang that part). Just trust me on that one.

…Kinda wish it worked that way when you say, “Honey, I’m thinking I need a new dildo.”