Now, my general advice is that if anyone sends you to the internet to do a search on spanking anything, you do not do it. My husband does this to me all the time. “Do a search on tub girl.” I did, and I will never be the same. (Note to readers: DO NOT SEARCH ON TUB GIRL. DON’T DO IT. NO. I WARNED YOU. Seriously, dude, no.) So I’m normally wary of anything like this, but she said search it on eBay and I thought, well… how bad could it be? Stupid question, yes, I know, but… well… go to eBay and search if you must. I’m not going to link directly here, or really comment much, except to say that if I’m going to have my my hey-there parts sticking out between netting, I’ll just save myself the 20 bucks and go naked. This makes me boring, but it also saves my $20, and that’s something in this economy.

So, as you can imagine, this spawned a search online for her dress. Let me tell you, I’m not much of a shopper, but this was fun. We’d scour the pages, find horrible dresses, e-mail each other and the other would open the link and scream, “Ohhhhhhhhhh…. no!” and lather, rinse, repeat. Some of our more memorable finds:

For the woman who wants people to stare at her boobs and think "What the what?" instead of the more traditional, "Nice rack."

For the 10% of the population who can pull of these colors, I say, go for it! And maybe bring sunglasses.

Is it a dress? Is it a tunic? Is it a cautionary tale that maybe one should not design women's wear when one clearly hates women? We report, you decide.

(Okay, this last one came from a company called T-bags. When I made repeated jokes about how unfortunate the company name is – oh, to be a fly on the wall at that board meeting – we eventually discovered that Sam didn’t know what teabagging is, a situation I rectified immediately. Hey, the gloves came off when she sent me looking for spanking dresses.)

And finally, also from T-Bags (look them up on Overstock.com, they’ve got a million dresses and, dare I say, nary a good one among the lot) we have this final gem:

Is is just me, or does the woman wearing it look like she'd rather it fall off and they just take a picture of her naked? "I'd rather my grandmother see my oooh bits than wear this dress." Now that's a bad dress.

As for the (very nice, non T-Baggy) dress Sam finally picked out, we’ll just have to wait and see for that. Really, there are a lot of lovely, lovely dresses at Overstock.com. It’s just that there are also, well, these:

Rule of thumb: When it looks bad on the mannequin, it's just BAD.

And to all the people who got here by searching “teabagging,” “spanking dresses,” and “tub girl,” welcome! And I’m sorry for the dissapointment. But hey, dig the bad dresses.

Openings are still available! Click here for more information:

I know it’s not Russian because they sound my name out in Cyrillic, which is pretty cool, and I’ve seen those copies. I see the word “Valentine” in the text, so I’m guessing it’s Ex and the Single Girl. Then again, it mentions the Rita awards, and that was Time Off For Good Behavior, but it gets mentioned in a lot of other reviews. So.

Here’s the text of the review:

“Quay cuồng vì yêu” - cuốn tiểu thuyết lãng mạn pha chút trinh thám (ảnh) của Lani Diane Rich (Mỹ) là ấn phẩm dành cho ngày Valentine của Cty sách Phương Nam và NXB Trẻ. Cuộc chiến tình cảm diễn ra giữa hai người đàn ông đẹp trai, hào hoa, làm phụ nữ thị trấn điên đầu và cô gái nhà giàu “vô tích sự” về đây tiếp quản một khách sạn được thừa hưởng từ bà cô già mới chết. Lani Diane Rich có lối viết vừa hài hước, vừa chân thực. Cô đã giành được một số giải thưởng văn học quan trọng, trong đó đáng kể là giải “Tiểu thuyết đầu tay xuất sắc nhất” (RITA Awards – giải thưởng dành riêng cho dòng văn học lãng mạn).

Any ideas? Translations? I tried Babelfish, but I didn’t know what language to tell it. Boy is my face ever going to be red if the reviewer hated it, but the curiosity is overwhelming my pride.

So… help?

UPDATE:

Ha! Google Translate saves the day! Sort of:

“”Circle of love” – the novel romantic little detective phase (picture) by Lani Diane Rich (USA) is the publication date for Valentine’s Company and the Southern NXB Tre. The emotional place between two men left beautiful, magnificent, as women entered town and the rich girl “of the invisible” on here to be a hotel she inherits from her dead old new . Lani Diane Rich has written both ways humor, just the legs. She earned several awards important literature, which is remarkable “novel first hand excellent (Rita Awards – Awards for the romantic literature).”

It’s Crazy in Love, and I am just tickled to discover I write both ways humor, just the legs. Can I use that on a book cover, do you think?

Abby Richmond had come to Summerville, Ohio, to sell the bakery she just inherited from her grandmother, but when she decides to attend the Kammani Gula dog-obedience class being held at the local college, she meets Web designer Daisy Harris and Professor Shar Summer. After drinking some of Kammani’s special “tonic,” Abby, Daisy, and Shar not only hear their dogs talking but each woman finds she has been given a unique power. Once the three discover they are pawns in a plot concocted by a 4,000-year-old, very cranky Mesopotamian goddess who plans on ruling the world, Abby, Daisy, and Shar (along with the new men in their lives) team up to stop her. Equal measures of sexy romance, captivating characters, and clever writing give Jennifer Crusie, Anne Stuart, and Lani Diane Rich’s collaborative effort its splendidly original flavor. With its uniquely talented trio of authors, uniquely resourceful trio of heroines, rich cast of quirky secondary characters (including one of the best villainesses ever written), and wickedly witty writing, Dogs and Goddesses is absolutely sublime.

I’m so pleased they noticed how wonderfully the villain, Kammani, was written. That was all Crusie, and she did a fabulous job.

Remember to check in at dogsandgoddesses.com for more behind-the-scenes posts from us (including more of our famous Campfire chats coming up) and for live updates from our D&G World Tour. Thanks!