The Prostitutes of Door County . . .

. . . understand the importance of having multiple profit centers.

During our trip to Door County last summer, we purchased pickled beets made by Bea's hos. I had forgotten about the beets and dug them out of the cabinet last weekend. They're tasty. Those b*tches know how to do pickled beets right.

I have nothing pressing to do right now. Tomorrow, I'll have 40 exams to grade. On Wednesday, I'll get about 40 more, and Thursday will bring with it twenty-three 25-30 page papers, which is kind of a lot of reading for me to get done by Monday.

To answer your question about the hearing aids, they actually don't have volume control. They don't have an on/off switch either. Here's a picture of the Oticon Delta 6000:

Note: This is so not my hand. One way you can tell is the lack of paper cuts and nasty cuticles on the pictured hand. This is obviously the hand of a professional hand model.

Of course, I chose the Oticon Delta 6000 because there is also an Oticon Delta 4000 and an Oticon Delta 8000, and people tend to choose the middle option. This is detailed in Dan Ariely's book, Predictably Irrational, which I have yet to read because Mr. Banality is reading it right now, but I know a lot about the book because Mr. Banality loves to provide me with spoilers. You might think that you can't have spoilers for nonfiction books about behavioral economics, but, oh boy, you can.

You know what else? I'll bet that there's no Oticon 2000 because no one uses "2000" in a product name anymore because "2000" is so . . . 2000. My hearing aids are pink, like the ones pictured. There were multiple colors and patterns available, including zebra striped, golf ball textured, and hibiscus print. Oticon has jumped on the "of course we support breast cancer research" bandwagon, so some miniscule percentage of the profit from the pink hearing aids goes toward breast cancer research, but I just chose them because I like pink. However, I should take advantage of this opportunity to feel all self-righteous about supporting breast cancer research. I'm so morally superior to those jackasses who buy the golf-ball textured hearing aids.