Oh no I *didn't* !

But yes I did. I really, really did.

My friend John, also recently unemployed, sent me to cuteoverload.com. A man of few words, he sent only the link. No hello, no how are you. He doesn't write often, so I clicked.

Evil, evil man, that John. Because I went to every damn link on the site. It's bad enough that I clicked on something I knew was all about being cute but, okayI'lladmitit, I was listening to an easy listening radio station yesterday, and somewhere between Barry Manilow and Neil Diamond, the DJ encouraged everyone to visit cuteoverload.com. The DJ gushed about cuteoverload.com. I'm not sure, but I think the DJ wanted to spend some "alone time" with cuteoverload.com.

If this was 3 weeks ago, during my employment years, I would never, ever, go to that web site. Endorsed by an easy listening DJ? Easy listening stations are for administrative assistants who dress up for work but wear bobby socks and sneakers over their pantyhose for the commute in, then change into the work shoes they carry in their purse. Sartre believed that hell is others. I believe that hell is packed, sardine-like, with pantyhose/sneaker-clad admins, chatting about salad dressing and nail polish. And cuteoverload.com.

But guess what unemployment does to a person, folks? That's right. It gives you no excuse not to click on lame links. On the contrary, it makes you grateful for any link to click on, nevermind the content hiding behind it. So I clicked.

And clicked and clicked and clicked. I could not stop clicking. I loved every damn adorable creature on the site, even the crocheted ones. Yes, I admired crochet.

But really, it's not so much the pictures of cute things that got me. It's the commentary accompanying every photograph. Someone named Meg is in charge of the site, and Meg clearly has a dark side that must want to kick the crap out of the angel sitting on her other shoulder. She's a contradiction of stereotypes. A juxtaposition of stigmas. A fluffy-animal loving BADASS!

Take, for example:

• The photo of a kitten with a GIGUNDA head licking its tiny paw, staring straight into your soul with huge saucer-like eyes. One look at this thing and you become its bitch. I think if the CEO that laid me off had seen this photo first, he would have reconsidered painting his yacht and given me a month or two of severance instead. The caption Meg put on it? And I quote: "Is it wrong to want to SQUEEEEZE a kitten?" Umm, Meg? Yes. Yes it is. But I understand. I have a friend who thinks babies are so cute she wants to bite them. Just a nibble on the cheek, though. She swears. Oh, and it really is a friend. It's not me.
• A two-photo series under the section of her site called "Cute or Sad?" The first pic shows a huge, all-white, wolf dog teeming with baby chicks crawling all over it. The second photo is of the same dog and his master, strolling down the avenue, followed by a long, single-file line of fuzzy yellow birds. Her caption reads, "Cute or Sad? You be the judge—to me, this entry falls into the Sad category—cause you know those teeny ducklings are like, WTF?" Meg, anyone who can put the words "teeny ducklings" and "WTF" in the same sentence is my hero.
• The image of a chiptych (no f'n clue what that is, either? It's a chipmunk-esque rodent about the size of your pointer finger) being fed peanuts. Still in the shell. Two of them. Big ones. The creature is the size of your pointer finger, people! The nuts are half the size of its whole entire body! And there it is, a monstrous human hand cramming peanut #2 into its mouth. It seems twisted and wrong, but the chiptych appears to like it.

After a lovely browse through the site, I can see why John was so taken with it. He and Meg are kindreds! He's got an appreciation for the adorable, yet twisted. He once shared his new, cute electronic toy with me. It wanted to play 20 questions, and dared me to think of a noun, any noun, and then guessed what it was after asking 20 yes/no questions. He left it with me for the morning, and I had fun trying to make it guess "penis." While it accurately guessed tangible things like "apple" and even intangible things like "e-mail," it would only go so far as to guess "urethra" when I tried to make it be dirty. I returned it to John later that morning and told him my findings. He said, "I know."

All righty, then! Thanks for the link, John! But I'm curious -- did you hear about cuteoverload.com on the easy listening station too? This I gotta know. I'd have to start my own web site called ironyoverload.com. Maybe I will anyway. It's not like I don't have the time!

(Hey... anyone want to place a bet that Meg is unemployed too?!)