Magazines? Psshht.

Insults. No one wants them. No one wants them to come from a magazine.

What is it with women's magazines? Am I the only one who feels slightly jilted when I open one and turn to the table of contents, only to see that nearly every story in there is From Flabby to Fabulous: Tone your Tush or Are you Poisoning your Family? First of all, I didn't realize my tush was all that flabby...and second, now I'm going to hyperventilate because OHMIGOD, I'm going to kill my family! I turn quickly to page 52 so that I can stop poisoning them.

Oh, what relief. Thank God this article is here to tell me how I can buy all the right foods for my family. There'll be no poisoning here today, thank you very much. I am now trying my hardest not to kill my family with sugar...or -- gasp! -- hydrogenated oils. And as for the tush toning? I flip right past that like I do every month when I see the fitness section. Who needs all that guilt anyway? These women pictured in the article don't really get to exercise. They're just models posing for the magazine. The woman who wrote the article? Well she's probably just idealizing what she could do with her tush four children ago.

So flipping through the magazine I find even more insults. Meet Alice. Alice is pictured on page 61 and the "contents" of her "purse" are spread among the page. Everything labeled according to price and what website it can bought off of. This section is entitled "What's in her bag?" and shows every single reader what you should have in your purse and why. Are any of those items really things that Alice carries in her bag? I can see it now: The bag of B. Contents list as follows: Too old Hello Kitty wallet from college, a few crumpled up Huggies, a ziplock of wet wipes, a sticky bottle of bubbles, a binky, and a bottle of teething tablets. The contents of my purse are not as glamorous as Alice's. She has perfume. She has a compact for on the go make up touch ups. She has a teeny tiny cosmetics store in her teeny tiny cost-a-million dollar purse.

Alice doesn't really carry that bag, and those are NOT her belongings. Who the hell is Alice, anyway?

Then it's on to the travel section. Did you know people actually vacation every year? Now I feel horrible because I don't remember the last time I went on vacation. I must be depriving my family.

And there's always the financial advice columns. These are my favorites. This month's issue features a story about a couple who are "drowning" in financial debt. Oh dear, it seems they're barely affording their $495,000 mortgage. It's a real sob story, actually...the Rolex watch they so treasured has to be auctioned off on ebay to make ends meet. When their pay was cut in half unexpectedly, it seems that their $16,000 savings cushion wasn't cushy enough. Not cushy enough? If $16,000 isn't cushy enough, then I guess our $.16 isn't cushy enough either.

I closed the magazine. I set it on the coffee table.

All I got out of that experience was that my ass is too fat, my family is eating too much "hidden" sugar because apparently I stock up on junk at the store, the contents of my purse/diaper bag pale in comparison to Alice's glamorous beauty-store-in-a-bag and I'm missing out on valuable family time because our sixteen cent cushion won't send us on vacation every year.

I hate magazines.