When it comes to finding the odd kitchen gadgets and bakeware you can't find anywhere (and by anywhere I mean Target), the first place I turn is Urban Gourmet on Sixth Avenue. They've pacified my need this right NOW! attitude many times. There were the times of smoked sea salt, the mini-madelines pans, silicone pans, and most recently the Caldrea cleaning products. I blame this one on fellow Volcano scribe Jessica Corey-Butler. I wash my hands obsessively when I go to her house just to use her Caldrea soap. Then there was that one time she showed me her magnificent, soft, goat-haired duster with the wooden handle. That's when I fell in love with Caldrea for life.

So yeah, I just HAD to run to Urban Gourmet for my Caldrea fix. Oh, and while I was there you know I just HAD to use the bathroom. The Urban Gourmet owner almost wouldn't let me use it. She kept going on and on about all of the construction due to the new kitchen they're putting in the back for cooking lessons. I laughed in her face while Bandito Betty shot her in the neck with the tranquilizer gun, then we headed back to the bathroom.

While I was in there I started thinking how I should pick up some Christmas gifts and get some of that shit out of the way early. I went down my mental list of relatives, what I should get them, thought of how it couldn't be anything big or heavy so as not to weigh down the USPS airplane and make them crash into a deserted island where the other's could kill some of them off one by one, but keep the good one's locked up for medical research. What? You know you love Lost just like I do.

Well I know for sure I have one gift already taken care of. My brother Jason. He came to visit recently, and we had the inevitable masturbation discussion. It's a normal family discussion, right? So let me ask you guys: When you are staying with a family member at their house, do you spank the monkey while you're there? If so, where do you leave the monkey spit?

I was changing the sheets after he left, and that's when I had the unfortunate opportunity to find out where my brother left it when he was staying at my house. Nope, you're wrong. Not the sheets. No, it wasn't a piece of his clothing he left behind either. A Kleenex? Nope. Give up? Fine, I'll tell you: It was one of my very nice Ralph Lauren guest towels from the guest bathroom. That 30-year-old man left his dead babymakers in my Ralph Lauren guest towel¬" and left it on my floor. For me to find. Didn't even put it in the hamper, or at least have the decency to steal it and take it home to wash it himself.

SO, what did my brother get for Christmas this year? I already packaged it up and mailed it: One crusty Ralph Lauren guest towel compliments of Steph DeRosa.

As I finished up my womanly potty business I admired the original exposed brick with it's toasty, warm colors and simplistically elegant textures. I thought to myself how I might've cheated my brother out of a quality Christmas gift, but how he undoubtedly deserved it. All that's left to wonder is: Will I get a thank you card? And if so, I wonder if it will be stuck together.¬" Steph DeRosa