Let's Face It

Word to the PRs who contact me to hock new products: never send me a promo email starting with "Let's face it, times are tough." And then go into some spiel about why it is that I should get behind your new Mommy Calendar website to facilitate my multi-tasking mommy life or whatevs.

Times are tough? Says who? Personally, I spend my days--once Crabkid is dispatched to preschool--lying on the floor in my purple blogging robe, masticating large handfuls of the licorice candy Good 'n Plenty while playing Mine Hunt on my ancient Palm Pilot. Speaking of Palm Pilots, PRs, can you get me an iPhone? Heck, even a Blackberry would be be a step up from my ancient Palm Pilot. Bristol Palin's soulmate Levi Johnston has one, and I wrote about it, so right there you can see intelligent product placement if you've got a spot of intelligence yourself.

PRs and random stuff-hockers: it would also help if you could tell the diffs between a blog and a concrete, physical locale. So when you offer some sort of peculiar mommy-centric faxing services to the "guests" of my "hotel" you've rather missed the mark as far as my venue is concerned.

And now let us come to the pesky recurring matter of educational products for children. For those of you with websites promoting educational toys, where on Crabmommy did you ever see mention of educational playtime? Oh, wait, was it here? Or maybe here? If you know and like my blog as you say you do, you'll know that edutainment and Crabmommy do not mix.

Ditto if you have a product that just plum don't make sense. I hate to call out individuals but I gotta give the award on this one to a company called Emotes who emailed me to promote their new product. Emotes are "cyber-beings with human-like emotions" that live inside the internet in the land of Emotia (this is all intoned in flat robot voice on their website). Robots teaching children about their feelings? Crab. Mommy. Does. Not. Get. It. (intoned in robot voice)

Don't know about the rest of you bloggy people, but I prefer the emails that offer me stuff I really can get behind. I have my readers to think of and authenticity and consistency are key for them. They don't go to Crabmommy looking for an endorsement of your new digital Time Out station or a flashcard game that teaches children how to make good choices. They come to me looking for zero edification whatsoever. And maybe for a Dollar store pregnancy test or two.

So, send me your special soaps for washing out kiddie potty mouths. Send me your cruel-to-be-kind portable child prison. Fine, call it something cute like "Safe Station." Just make sure it has a lock and soundproofing. Send me cookbooks for my crockpot. Better yet, send me a crockpot. I think my "high" setting is still too low. Send me vacations. I can get behind those. Even if it's a timeshare in a subdivision in El Paso. If there's a pool and you can score me some JetBlue passes, I'm yours because staycations are even worse than the word "staycation" itself.

Send me art supplies. Lots. I loathe cracking out the shekels for that stuff. Send me tampons for making wiener dogs. And another tip: if you claim to love my blog and know me like the back of your hand, spell my name right. Crabmommy: one word, not two. In summary, dear random hockers who blast my inbox frequently, here's the most important thing you can do for both of us: First see if product placement is remotely likely before you get in touch with the mommyblogger. It's PR 101, no? I know I'm not the first to talk about this (I remember Queen of Spain doing a good rant about this once), and I am surely not the last. If you come here, offer me something that makes sense, something I would actually dig.

Like lip balm. I can talk about lip balm until the end of my days. Indeed, when I am on my deathbed and the family leans in for last loving words, I will likely be croaking about my favorite lip balm (currently, that's Bigelow). I also really, really like sunblock and can get very, very involved in any discussions of sunblock, utilizing such fancy words such as "helioplex" and "broad spectrum." And I like well-designed, useful things for children and parents. Such as cashmere onesies for the entire family.

If you're in doubt, here's something I can place any time of the year: send me money. It's worked remarkably well in the past and Crabmommy is likely to be captivated by it in the future and will heavily endorse it for you--and sincerely too!

Last, to those who email me announcing that I have been selected to be on the blog roll for your new entirely unknown site called MomConnected or MommyIsASuperhero or MomsRockOutSoBigTime or whatever the frock, please understand that while I am incredibly grateful for the rare privilege of a spot on your roster, Crabmommy doesn't have the space to embed your stupid widget into the sidebar of this blog. But thanks anyway! I wish you all good fortune in your venture. It sounds totally awesome!

p.s. Fans of Pippi Longstocking: New post today on "Thing-Finding" at the bloglet.