8 Tips to Keep Your Holidaze From Going Off the Rails

By Robin Reiser

If you’re like me and love the blaze of twinkle lights and seasonal sweaters between Turkey Day and New Year’s Shame & Bloat Day, you may at times let the festivities get the best of your good judgment. Ho-Ho-Hope this helps!

1.    Avoid Hallucinogens Before Aunt Ruth’s Annual Tree Trimming Party

Yes, the tree is much more beautiful when you can smell the colors from the lights and hear the molecular structure of the Frosty ornaments- but no one will remember the brilliant realization you had that the formation of the universe happens every time Bing Cosby sings “White Christmas.” They will only remember that you hurled shrooms in their linen closet.

2.   Keep Your Christmas Tree in Your Pants

Whether you’re an innie or an outie- you gotta be extra careful not to let the Christmas spirit carry you into a flurry of exposing your genitals. This is especially true if the urge hits you in the middle of your kid’s Christmas pageant. Indeed, a chorus of cheery voices singing “Good King Wenceslas” has the power to inspire the best of us to streak. You must keep it together.

3.   Beware of Santa Goggles

Tis’ the season, right? If anyone’s gonna warm your cookies, it’s that jolly ol’ elf, Kris Kringle. But I beg you to look past the rosy cheeks and the belly that shakes like a bowl full of jelly (yum!) to the man behind the beard. He has a full workload, he’s exhausted, and let’s be honest, he’s not into your elaborate “naughty reindeer” dry hump. Plus, the line for photos behind you is wrapping around the mall. Let someone else sit on Santa’s lap for now.

4.     No Holiday Shopping During Coke Binges

Of course it seems like a good idea. After all, you’re psyched, your sharp, and you’ve got tinsel running through your veins! Take it from me; you will wind up buying everyone on your list, from your 2-year-old niece to your life coach, the same Brookstone Versatile Massager, because at the point of sale, you convinced the sales guy that you invented it and had to buy them all.

5.     Avoid Underpants with Battery Operated Novelty Lights

I agree, they couldn’t be cuter- seriously, who’s not getting lucky in the Rudolph thong that actually glows! Except, chances are you’re gonna spend a little too much time chugging the festive punch, and too little time watering the poinsettias, then blammo! The next thing you know there’s an electrical fire in your pubes. Happens all the time.

6.     Christmas Parades and Religious Tirades Don’t Mix

I get it; floats with girls waving while advertising real estate insurance are maddening! Whether you’re pissed off because there’s too much consumerism and not enough Baby Jesus, or because Hanukkah is shamefully under represented (again!) this is a bad place to go off your meds, drink a quart of brown booze and bring your favorite fire arm to join you in a passionate lecture about the true meaning of anything. Just saying.

7.    Refrain from Yuletide Electronics Exploitation

No matter how nostalgic you may feel for holidays past, do not text heartfelt messages to everyone in your phone at 3am as you weep uncontrollably from the back of a cab you just puked in. Nuff said.

8.     The Office Holiday Mixer is No Place to put the XXX in XMAS

Yes, jingle bells are sexy. Yes, Pat from HR does look enticing in that Elf hat. But let’s be straight here, Pat’s not straight and this will only end in tragedy. If it suddenly occurs to you to publicly practice fellatio on a candy cane, or go all Fifty Shades of Christmas on the IT personnel, quickly cool your gingerbread latte with the knowledge that all the festivities will soon be over…

*Bonus Tip*

Don’t even bother with New Years resolution- seriously; it’s a conspiracy to make you feel bad about yourself. Obviously.

Focus on This: A Hustler’s Life- Job # 14

 

“Are you the primary grocery shopper in your household?”

“Are you currently in the market for a new dishwasher?”

“Have you ever lied for a living?”

For me the answer to all of the above would be, “Yes.” 

YES, the magic word that will enable you, if you have the know-how and lack of scruples, to rake in the dough as a “Focus Group Participant.”

I started out in this world of swindle and scam after I was unceremoniously fired from my honest job as a front desk receptionist at a gym and was facing destitution. My sympathetic boyfriend gave me a list of numbers to call for extra cash.

“What are they?” I asked, wide-eyed.

“Focus group companies, babe. Just call them up and register. Say you’re into everything they ask you about: clothes, politics, smoking, drinking, blackjack, puppies, you name it.”

I nodded, dumfounded that it could be so easy. It barely made a ripple in my conscience that I would be lying outright for money. I mean who doesn’t lie for money? Most people go to work, smile at their awful boss, exaggerate to their clients and lie everyday of their lives. Lying is selling and “selling” in the wise words of Willy Loman, “is life.”

What I couldn’t have foreseen was the rabbit hole of fraud and deceit I was about to fall into. To even scrape by as a professional Focus Group Participant, one has to become a con artist, a grifter, a flimflam man.

If you’ve never participated in a Focus Group here’s a snap shot of how it works. 

A Research Marketing Company is hired by a large corporation to find people in a particular target group to come in for an hour or two and share their opinions about a product or marketing scheme.  Participants sit in a special conference room equipped with spy worthy hidden cameras and microphones as corporate marketing experts sit behind a glamorous one-way mirror and take notes on every answer, micro-movement and vocal crack. As a participant you are usually paid between $50-$300 for your time, tax-free and totally off the grid. It’s a sweet deal, especially if you are out of work and you can swing a few of these a week.

To totally fleece these companies, I learned to con my way into focus groups I had no business being in. To do that, I had to get through the initial phone call. A perky guy named Steve would call and say, “Hey Robin! We have a Focus Group coming up on the topic of sport sandals, are you interested?”  The answer must not reflect desperation, but must be in the affirmative. “Sure Steve, I have sport sandals.”  And the heist has begun.

There is no way to know what exactly they are looking for, so hedge your answers. The caller wants you to qualify, he wants to meet his quota as fast as possible so he can get to TGI Fridays and pack away the jalapeno poppers. So he will hint at, or even give the answers he wants.

Steve: Do you tend to enjoy your sport sandals, a- daily; b- once a month; or c- only on special occasions?

Me: Um, well not everyday, but definitely more than once a month…

Steve: It sounds like you’re not a daily sport sandal wearer, so lets put you down for b.

See how Steve just helped?

Next, there’s a follow up call to catch you in case you’re lying. First rule of a good liar: remember your lie. These focus group people are crafty and they keep asking the same questions over and over to bust a fraudulent participant.

Finally, once in the conference room begins the swindle. The rule for a good swindle is to have a story, and once you start telling it, feel it, believe it and tell it to the world (or just the people behind the mirror).

Over the years I’ve does hundreds of these. I’ve said that I was in the market for a boob-job and then answered questions about my hopes and fears for the developments in implant materials. I have tasted cheeseburgers, tried cigarettes, chewed gum and chimed in about bank policies. I’ve even said I was a registered republican!

I was almost busted once when I said I was a cat enthusiast and was the odd girl out among a bunch of women sincerely wearing bedazzled sweatshirts with kitten appliqués. We told each other fun stories of our sweet kitty cats and all their antics. I thought I had this one licked until the moderator brought out plate after plate of cat food. Wet cat food. I almost vomited. I was the only one who didn’t oh and aw at the prospect of cat food cans coming with a shaker of freeze dried liver yum-yums to sprinkle on top.  All eyes were on me, the weirdo without a lifetime subscription to Cat Fancy. The moderator got a beep on her intercom from the people behind the mirror. I was panicked, unless I thought fast, I was done for! I quickly covered by saying I’d had a bad childhood experience involving organ meats. The moderator relaxed and one tenderhearted cat lady took my hand to console me. I was home free.

I’ve never really stopped the focus hustle, just slowed down. Every time I think it’s over and I’m out, they call me back in, “Hi Robin, it’s Steve, we have a group coming up about rose gardening, are you interested?” And before I can stop myself I say, “Yes Steve, I have a rose garden!” And the con is back on.