Daily Diatribes

Western civilization became defined by the remote control in the latter half of the 20th century.  Who doesn’t remember their first television remote, roughly the size of a toy poodle, that wondrous invention that allowed you to surf all five channels on your massive, black and white console TV without ever leaving the comforts of your couch?  And when cable television arrived on the scene, the remote control really began to earn its keep.  So many channels to choose from; how could one possibly settle for a single show.  Thus, the channel surfer was born.

I have said before in these pages and I reaffirm it as the truth:  I do not watch television.  At least not on a regular basis.  I usually get hooked on a show when its in reruns, will watch every episode, and then never watch it again.  I have done this with Everybody Loves Raymond, Sex and the City, and Charmed, shows I now cannot stand.  Well, ok, I’ll watch them in a pinch, but only if the weather channel is showing Storm Stories, which I loathe, although I really do love Jim Cantore, although he is much shorter than I thought he was and very bald, although I actually find most bald men incredibly sexy, unless they are compensating by growing more hair out of their nose…  but I digress.

The point is, I have no need to surf because I don’t watch television, so I don’t need to see what’s on every channel.  If I am looking for something, I will use the on screen guide to see what programs are scheduled.  But I don’t really surf.

Tim, on the other hand, is actually representing Hoover in the National Channel Surfing competition next spring.  The organizers are hoping it will become a regular event in the Summer Olympics.  You can’t tell me it would be any lamer than power walking or that game they play with broomsticks and pucks!! 

Tim channel surfs obssessively and it is the cause of frequent disturbances in our marriage.  One night, I was trying to sleep.  When the TV is on while you are trying to fall asleep, you can’t help but listen to whatever is on the screen.  Just as I would start to get interested, he would switch channels.  Finally, I sat up and asked him what the hell he was watching.  “I’m really watching three things,” he told me, “MASH, Law and Order and this history channel special.”  I got up in a huff and went upstairs to sleep. 

So lately I have been observing his pattern of channel surfing and I have charted the differences between male and female surfing.  For starters, he goes so fast, there is no way to even see what is actually on the channels.  Where I would stop on food commercials (including infomercials), he keeps right on going, past the expose on E about Martha Stewarts secret, swinging sex parties and past the Biography Channels movie of the week about Elizabeth Taylor.  Tim started at channel 99 and worked his way all the way down to Discovery Channel, which was airing a makeover show. 

Were they making over a 1930’s country bungalow??  Oh no, they were making over some fat trucker’s semi-cab thing.  They were redoing the walls and hanging curtains.  I actually think that is a sign of the end times.  THEY MADE HIM A MASSAGE BED FOR CRYING OUT LOUD!!!!!!  Needless to say, I made Tim change the channel.  The last thing I want to see before bed is Bubba The Trucker’s tears of joy when he beholds the new chintz curtains in his diesel tractor trailer.

From there, Tim went to the history channel.  Really, there don’t need to be many options for men.  If I was going to market a cable service just to men, there would be a history channel that showed nothing but black and white films of the 3700 different ways fighter pilots shot down German planes in WW2.  There would be the monster truck makeover channel of course, a channel that showed Law and Order 24/7 (well, ok Roseanna would like that too), a porn channel and ESPN.  Men don’t need anything else!!!!  No cooking channels, no art film channels, just sex, sports and monster trucks.  Oh and maybe a channel with bad action series from the 1970’s.  

My point is that for men, channel surfing is like breathing.  It is necessary to their very existence!  My favorite thing is when Tim will flip through all the channels…and then do it again.  I will point out, very reasonably, that most programs change every 30 minutes, not every 30 seconds, but he, of course, ignores me.  It’s like he thinks if he goes through it again, really fast, something fabulous might suddenly appear that he missed the first ten times he flipped through, maybe some monster trucker getting a makeover on his tires or something.  

Tim left for Wisconsin today for five days, and for five glorious days, the remote is mine…..muahahahahahahaha!!!  Of course, I will park the tv on The Weather Channel and leave it, but it’s nice to know I have that authority!!!  

An Original Poem

By:  Me

T’was the day after Thanksgiving

And all thru the Hood

Christmas wreaths were going up

Just as I knew that they would.

Colored lights were strung ’round

The chimneys with care

In hopes of making the neighbor’s house look bare.

The reindeer were ranged ’round the yard in a herd

With a snowman in the middle, looking absurd.

Mama had the hammer and I had the nails

And we were tacking up garland along the rails,

When down in the yard I heard such a clatter

I lost my balance and fell off of the ladder.

Up from the ground, I flew like a flash,

Moaning and groaning and rubbing my….head.

When what to my wondering eyes should appear

But a giant inflatable Santa Claus and eight enormous reindeer.

They were being erected by old Lady Goldbluth

In a desperate bid to win “Yard of the Month”.

A flick of her wrist and a toss of her head

Soon gave me to know I had much to dread.

A display like hers could not be matched

Something she knew when her evil plot she hatched.

Her eyes how they sparkled, her mole was so hairy,

Her sly little mouth smirked at my query.

“Why the display?” I asked, though I knew,

“You’re not even Christian, you’re a Jew!”

“I celebrate Hannukah,” she said with a sneer,

“But I’ll win the display award this year.”

I asked “But please tell me how on earth

Does your display celebrate our Saviour’s birth?”

She looked at my lights, my snowman and the herd,

And though she mouthed not a single word,

I knew what she meant; it came through loud and clear

And it was the death of my holiday cheer.

She spoke no more words, but went back to her work,

Finished putting up her lights, then turned with a jerk

And went into her house, and lighted her menorah.

I slunk into my house, vowing to take my lights down tomorrow.

There is not enough garland, tinsel, or lights

To truly celebrate the nativity of the Christ.

I finally removed the emergency phone from its closet and called Gina’s husband to get his input.  The phone does not have a cradle and the connector thingy is somewhat loose. What followed was an extremely surreal conversation, reminsicent of those spots done by GMC for OnStar:

Hello, Zellner Residence…….

(Me giggling)… Gina, is Joe there??

Yeah, just a minute

Hey Joe….I’ve sort of….(more giggling) locked myself out of my bedroom and I couldn’t pick the lock, so I took the doorknob off and now I’ve knocked the knob out of the other side and the door is still locked and i can’t get in….

(very calm and nice, unlike Gina, goddess of evil that she is!!)….What do you see now?

(I turn and the phone thingy pulls out of the wall.  I go to plug it back in and I am laughing so hard I cannot plug it in…finally get it and call Joe back and explain phone situation to him…he remains calm and nice….drugs???)

I see a big hole, Joe, where the doorknob used to be (I can hear Gina screaming with laughter in the background, may she be stricken with a plague of dandruff)

Well, what’s in the hole?

Hold on, I’ll go look (having already disconnected him twice, I very gently put the phone down…come back to the phone…)  Ok, there’s a rectangle thing with a hole in it

A rectangle??

Well, ok, a bar I guess, with a circle

Is it a half circle or a whole circle?

I guess it’s a half circle…I dunno…why?  (He then proceeds to explain to me how to maneuver the latch based on whether it is a whole circle or half circle, altho I am laughing much too hard to understand what he’s saying

If it’s a half circle, you need something bigger than a screwdriver, maybe a butter knife, to insert into the circle and push it up and that should undo the latch.  If it’s a whole circle, push to the left and chant in Sanskrit “Oh mighty God please unlock the door” while standing on your left foot with your right eye half closed, your tongue touching your back 3rd molar and it should unlock” (or something like that)  But (and this is a direct quote) the half circle or circle in the rectangle in the hole is the key (that’s some deep shit man…)

I got a screwdriver and a butter knife and fiddled with the stupid thing for several minutes, to absolutely no avail because I am incompetent!!!!!!  Then another light bulb pinged (like one tonight wasn’t bad enough!!!)  I would get my Parisian card and use that.  In our old house, I used to break in that way all the time, although I preferred Master Card since it was a little sturdier.  Still, the Parisian card is about to be obsolete and I figured I could slide it between the lock and the jamb and pop the lock.  BINGO…..20 seconds later I am in!!!!

So now, I am trying to screw the doorknob back together before Tim gets home.  I think I am going to use the drill….no just kidding!!  But at least he never has to know about the door knob part, right?????  I am swearing you all to silence, or I will never blog again!!!!!!! 

There is just no limit to the jams I get myself into.  God is punishing me for thinking about passing gas in church and also for writing a less than positive letter to the PTO president of the school my children used to attend.  I just wish he would cast me into flames of damnation or something else more tolerable.

I have done a fair bit of Christmas shopping during the last few weeks and, as is my custom, I have placed it in my closet for safekeeping.  Like no one EVER thinks about looking for the presents in mom’s closet!!  Still, most of mine still believe in Santa and my closet has actually been declared a federal disaster area, so it’s pretty safe. 

But of late, Abby has taken to prowling through my room, looking at things.  She tries on my shoes, looks at my jewelry, that sort of thing.  I have asked her not to, but my child, being somewhat less than compliant, does not always listen.  So tonight, knowing I would be with Anna at dance and that Abby would be home alone, I called Josh and asked him to lock my bedroom door.

That in itself was an ordeal.  When he answered the phone I said “Josh, will you do me a favor?”  He said no, which was not acceptable, so I just maintained my silence until he finally mumbled something.  “What did you say?” I asked him.  “WHAT?” he asked real loud.  “What did you say?” I repeated.  “Whaaaaatttt?” he asked again.  I am saddened to report that he was not trying to be sarcastic or annoying; talking to Josh is frequently like talking to the village idiot, only more exasperating because he’s not one.  “JOSH,” I intoned slowly, “PLEASE LOCK MY BEDROOM DOOR.”  “What?” he asked again and by now I was fantasizing about choking him.  Good thing I was several miles away.  “PLEASE LOCK MY BEDROOM DOOR, OK????”  “Fine,” he said, clearly annoyed I hadn’t just said that to begin with and not dragged out the conversation.  Jesus help me please!!!!!!!

When Tim got home, he called to find out why I had the bedroom door locked.  I explained it to him and asked him to please relock it when he was done changing.  He did.

Now we get to the damnation part; I got home before he left and I did not ask him to unlock it.  I am mechanically inept; any attempt to do anything remotely resembling engineering, like using a screwdriver, results in immediate disaster.  I do not work abstractly; I am very concrete.  In short, I cannot use the little lock picker thing to open the door. I tried for twenty minutes, cursing and swearing, snapping at the girls, twisting and turning the little thingamajiggy, all to no avail.  I simply could not get the door unlocked.

Then a sudden light bulb pinged over my head.  I know, I thought, I will use the screwdriver to take the handle off, then I can see where the thingamajiggy goes and unlock it that way.  Director, cue the music of dread…..anytime I pick up a screwdriver, something is bound to go wrong.  It was almost as if, on a subconscious level, I knew this was the wrong thing to do.  But I blazed ahead, as is my tendency.

I unscrewed away merrily, humming a little tune, while Abby and Anna tried to disembowel each other over a game of Chutes and Ladders.  Just another happy evening at home!!  The door knob popped off no problem and…presto…I could see exactly where the little lockpicking thingamajiggy went.  Problem solved.  Only I pushed too hard and the other doorknob fell off….into my locked bedroom.  And the door was still locked. 

I sent Abby down to get the key for the back door to my room.  We have a door that opens on to the deck.  Only I forgot, the key doesn’t work because SOMEONE BROKE OFF A KEY IN THE DOORKNOB!!!  (Nancy, I’ve been meaning to ask you about that…)

So here I sit, locked out of my bedroom, which is where the phone is, with nothing to do but blog about my terrible trials.  The best part is waiting for Tim to get home so I can explain to him how the doorknob came to fall off in our bedroom.  Nothing bad ever happens to Tim; he always knows just what to do.  All I can do is spell, which is not going to keep me in the tribe on Survivor.  You may just hear him screaming from whereever you are; it might possibly register on the Richter Scale.  Until then, I guess I’ll just sit here and play computer games and hope that I don’t have a need to call 911!!

I have to admit, I abhor the Christian Conservative Right sometimes.  Ok, maybe more than sometimes.  I, myself, am a Christian pseudo liberal conservative right wing left leaning mid center fence sitter with tendencies toward anarchy, tinged with socialism, and some capitalistic characteristics.  But that’s just me.  Anyway, from my position of impalement on the white picket fence, I can see all ways and I am able to rally forces from any movement, which leads me to today’s topic.  They have aborted a fetus in Chile.

Yes, it’s true, I saw it myself on AOL….here is the link:  http://articles.news.aol.com/news/_a/chilean-boy-born-with-fetus-in-his/20061124150509990008

The liberal deathmongers have aborted this fetus, claiming it wasn’t “viable” just because it didn’t have a head and was growing in its brother’s stomach.  I consider this to be an egregious violation of the fetus’s civil rights.  Who has the right to determine the viability of the headless?  Are we, as a society, deeming the headless unacceptable citizens just because they lack heads??  I am appalled and I am trying to reach Pat Robertson right now for back up. 

We all know how this will play out; today the headless, then the armless will be targeted and pretty soon, anyone with any sort of flaw will be exterminated by the liberal death machine, according to its own heinous definitions of “viable”.  This must be stopped.  The fact that the fetus had achieved 10 cm of growth and had a spine has led some scientists to conclude it was a potential candidate for an experimental head transplant and should have been put on the transplant list at once.  This was a human life, people, and no expense should have been spared to give it its shot at existence.

I am saddened and distraught over this matter.  To elevate the needs of the healthy twin over those of his less fortunate sibling flies in the face of all that is good and moral.  After growing together for nine months, the bigger twin protecting the smaller with his own internal organs, to separate them so cruelly is monstrous.  Who are those doctors in Chile, to play God so callously, murdering the headless twin, never pausing to consider it, too, might have a desire to live.  It too, might have had hopes and dreams, might have been able to see these hopes and dreams come to fruition with a head transplant. 

We must rally at once!!!!  We must march to Chile, must make those liberal doctors aware of their limitations, namely that they should not play God with the lives of the headless.  The headless need a voice too, since they have no voiceboxes and cannot actually utter any sound.  The headless are the meekest of the meek, the disenfranchised, and we must rise up and speak for those who cannot speak!!  So I implore you, join me now and take up the banner for Headless Rights, before another innocent is exterminated through no fault of its own!!!

(the preceding was a paid political advertisement by the white picket fence party)

Honestly, I am not good church material.  I am a good Christian, and I take my faith very seriously.  But I am incapable of sitting still through the service and listening.  I am too busy looking around at everyone who’s there, silently making fun of people’s wardrobe choices, and generally being anything but spiritual and meditative.

Tonight was no exception.  About halfway through Father’s homily, I felt a rumbling in my nether regions.  Apparently the leftover turkey I had consumed at lunch was expressing its desire to vacate the premises.  Redneck though I might be, I have enough class not to expel gas during a church service.  But of course my mind had to wander through what would happen if I did.

Can you imagine letting one rip right in the middle of the “Our Father”?  All around, people have their heads bowed, their lips forming the words of the ancient prayer, and all of a sudden “thhhhhhhhppppppppppppptttttttttttttttt” and noxious fumes fill the air.  Imagine the looks of horror I would receive from my family, except for Josh, who would be high fiving me, and the swoons from the old ladies behind me whose pacemakers would not be strong enough to withstand the dreaded turkey fart.  Father would stop his homily in mid sentence (and that in itself might be a blessing) to stare at me in horror as people all around me coughed and gagged, making their way toward the exits, tears streaming down their faces. 

I wonder how the Pope regards farting during the Mass?  I am going to have to grab “The Catechism of the Catholic Church” and see if it addresses flatulence.  Is it a mortal sin or a venial sin?  If you do it in church, do you have to confess it, or are you absolved on the spot if you say excuse me?  All I know is the more I contemplated it, the more my stomach rumbled, taking on a life of its own, trying its best to squeeze out the toot heard ’round the sanctuary.

I imagined the deacon (in slow motion of course) throwing himself in front of the altar crying “..nnnnnnnnooooooooooooooooooooo……….”, attempting to protect the blessed sacrament from the completely organic and natural phenomenon taking place at my backside.  Which brings up my next point:  Surely Jesus farted here and there?  If he was fully human, he was a gas passer.  All those fishes and loaves were bound to have a less than desirable effect on the digestive tract of our Saviour.  Plus people in the desert ate a lot of dates, and we all know what dates do!  So would He have a problem with me farting in church if I couldn’t help it?  Come on people….What would Jesus do???  He probably would have high fived me along with Josh…..”Dude, good one!!”

I am sure many of you are shaking your heads, planning prayer vigils for my immortal soul.  Well let me reassure you if I can’t fart in heaven, I have no problem going to hell!!  I don’t want to have to hold it in for all eternity, pretending to be a nice, well mannered person, when it is obvious I am not!  Besides, I am sure many of my loyal readers will be lounging around in hell, waiting for me to show up with the margaritas!! 

Well, I DID NOT fart in church tonight, although it was a mighty struggle, let me tell you!!  The more I thought about it, the tighter I had to squeeze, to keep it from seeping it out against my will.  Perhaps it was a lesser demon from the bowels of the earth (get it…bowels???!!!) come to torment me and attempt to make me a better person.  Well, it obviously didn’t work and I continue to be the same sorry specimen of humanity I was before the temptation, but one who has relieved the urge to fart in the comfort of my own home as opposed to God’s home.  They say an ill wind blows no good, but in this case, it blew pretty damn good if you ask me.  Still, I think an occasional fart here in there would liven up religion considerably.  I may have to let go and let God next time!!

I was going to respond to Kathy regarding blonde children, but the more I thought about it, the longer the response got, so I figured I would just continue my diatribe instead.  By the way, diatribe was a crossword puzzle clue last week, so I am educating the masses just with my title.  See how snooty I am???

Like Kathy, I also have two blonde daughters.  I myself am olive skinned, dark haired and dark eyed, owing to a rather significant amount of native American blood.  My mother, may she rest in peace, was red haired, green eyed, and freckled, and was blessed with three papooses.  I am sure many people questioned the heritage of her little darlings as well, although, like most brunettes, I was a blonde child.  Why do more people not know that many brunettes started out as towheads? 

My son is the only one of my three children who resembles me in the coloring department.  Like me, he has brown hair and olive skin, although his eyes are green.  My girls are a completely different story.  Abby, my middle child, looks exactly like my husband’s sisters, with high cheekbones and blue-green eyes.  Her hair is a streaky California blonde right now.  My youngest, known in these pages as demon girl/blonde goddess, looks like a regular little Swiss Miss, with flaxen tresses and big, crystal blue eyes.  In short, except for her face, she looks nothing like me superficially and that is, of course, what most people see.

I have lost count of the number of times in a day I receive the odd look, coupled with the inevitable “where does she get the blonde hair from?”  I get some looks when I am out, usually suspicious, as if people are sure I have kidnapped her from the Stepford family.  I always patiently answer that I was a blonde child, blah blah  blah, and this usually satisfies them.  BUT NO MORE!!!  I have devised a new answer, one that will shut the curious up permanently, and possibly cure them from their nosiness for all eternity.

When I get the “blonde” question, I will look them straight in the eye and say…are you ready for this….here in conservative Alabama….I will say:  “When my partner and I went to the sperm bank, we could pick the eye and hair color from a list of genetic traits.  I figured we’d go for the Aryan look in case the Nazi party ever rises again.  I know us lesbians will get carted off, because plaid shirts are a no no with the Nazis, but maybe they’ll spare the children.”  Or I might say “well, when I kidnapped her from her father, I dyed her hair so she wouldn’t resemble the kid on the milk carton.  I don’t know why he got full custody anyway; she was asleep when I was turning tricks.  And I only cooked meth in the house the one time.”  After either comment, I will add:   ”and hey, what about little Johnny there….your boy….are his ears big or what??  He didn’t get his daddy’s ears I guess….someone lost the genetic lottery there…ha ha!”

I figure if you’re going to comment on my child’s coloring, I can comment on your child’s ugliness, right?  Yeah, I may be a homely brunette with a blonde child, but at least she’s cute!!  What’s your excuse?  Hair can be dyed, but little Jimmy is stuck with that honker forever…unless you get him some plastic surgery for Christmas!!

There is no end to the rudeness of people, the questions they pose innocently, when their real intent is to see if they can draw blood.  I am pretty thick skinned and I don’t take offense, even when it is intended.  But I am going to start answering uncomfortable questions with uncomfortable answers, so rude people of the world beware!!

Well, I am completely exhausted, but I made it through another family holiday without burning down the house or killing anyone.  You laugh, but holidays past have found me torching the oven, breaking glass doors and dropping eggs on the dog.  I am a danger to myself and others during the holidays.

There was one notable incident with the Chex Mix last night.  Josh wanted to make homemade Chex Mix and in a fit of Martha Stewartishness, I said “Sure, why not?”, a phrase I would live to sorely regret.  Yes I know Chex Mix comes in nice bags found conveniently in the local Wal-Mart, but I have this stubborn notion that I have to cook EVERYTHING from scratch.  This does not always bode well for the family.

Anyway, I was so frantic yesterday, trying to get as much made ahead of time as possible, that the Chex Mix making got away from me.  At 9:00 last night, Josh was whining, as only a 13 year old boy can, about making the damn Chex Mix.  I was trying to figure out how to preserve our family digital pictures on the web before they were all irrevocably damaged or destroyed, and I was distracted.  Finally I told him to get the stuff out and we would make the damn Chex Mix.

Do you remember the holiday commercial about making Chex Mix?  It is family footage from the 1960’s I think, and Mom and Dad are hosting a swanky party, which would not be swank without, you guessed it, Chex Mix.  Mom is wearing heels and an apron and is competently mixing together the Chex, while overseeing a dozen other details and never getting her pearls out of order.  When Josh first suggested this project, this was my vision, a vision which sadly would not come to fruition.

Josh gets the cereal out and immediately dumps it all into a bowl with the pretzels.  Never mind following the recipe and MEASURING….no, he just dumps it all together.  I should have quit right there, but oh no, I have to do this right.  I made him separate it all back out and measure it all in the proper quantities.  While I was reading the recipe, I noticed it could be microwaved.  Perfect, think I, then I won’t have to stay up for an extra hour tonight.  So we mixed up the butter and spices, mixed it up and popped it in the microwave for five minutes.

When the timer went off and I opened the microwave, I saw smoke, which is never a good thing.  The smoke was rising up from the Chex mix, which was smelling suspiciously carcinocgenic.  I reread the directions and realized that, while five minutes was the correct time, I was supposed to be stopping the microwave and stirring at 2 minute intervals.  Whoops!!!  I served it today anyway, passing it off as Cajun Chex Mix….blackened, you know!!

This morning, I woke up refreshed and ready to tackle turkey day.  I sent the dog out to get the paper so I could peruse tomorrow’s early bird specials (which I will not be going out after, thank you very much, but I like to see which stores are likely to have brawls break out in the morning) but the paper was too big for him to carry.  So, in the spirit of thankfulness and goodwill that Thanksgiving promotes, I went down myself to get it.  Kirby decided to take off into the woods as I walked back up to the house.  I called him for a minute, but no response, so I turned around to go inside and tell Tim to call his silly damn dog.

I took two steps and was broadsided by the stupid dog!!!  The paper flew backward and I flew forward and pain exploded in my ankle….the same ankle that twisted at the zoo a few weeks ago.  The dumb dog didn’t even slow down, just kept running to the house, leaving me broken and bleeding on the front walk, sale papers raining down around me.  He is still alive, but only because he can run really fast!!!  I went inside and tried to get Tim to put him to sleep, but he wouldn’t do it because he didn’t have any euthanasia solution.  I suggested a hammer, but Tim likes the dog better than me anyway.  I think he may have given him an extra treat for knocking me down!!

Our Thanksgiving was very special this year.  Tim and I are constantly trying to figure out how to lower property values in the neighborhood.  We do this in a variety of ways, like hosting large, drunken parties and letting our children run around in their underwear.  Today we really reached for the Redneck Gold though.  Tim cooked our turkey in the backyard…in a trashcan!!  Yep, it’s true, although I bought the l’il sucker at the Winn Dixie on account of I couldn’t find one big enough to run over!!

Seriously, though, he cooked it in a trashcan and it turned out really good.  First he pounded a large stake in the ground and then he placed an onion halfway down the stake.  Then he took the turkey and impaled it on the stake.  Then the steel trashcan (think Oscar the Grouch) went over the top.  He heaped coals all around it and in three hours, we had a perfect turkey.  Plus we gave the neighbors something else to talk about!!

I cooked way too much food, the mashed potatoes were total crap and my mother in law insulted my pumpkin pie.  In short, a typical family Thanksgiving.  Everyone else is in bed now, and I will follow shortly.  I cooked everything and then I cleaned every bit of it up, so I am a wee bit exhausted at the moment.  I hope everyone who reads this (all six of you!!) had a wonderful day and I hope your mashed potatoes were much better than mine!!

I will leave you with a family picture from the day:

Abby and Anna eagerly await the carving of the Thanksgiving Spam!  I spent much money on the flowers at the snooty grocery store and I could only buy one can of Spam for dinner. 

DISCLAIMER:  There will be mistakes in this post because I have a bandaid on my pinky and it keeps messing up my typing.

Today I joined the rest of America in a frenzy of grocery shopping, spending the entire month’s grocery money on food for one meal.  Oh what a blessing to live in America, the land of plenty, where we can prepare food with reckless abandon, never once minding that no one will eat Great Aunt Gertrude’s mincemeat rutagbaga casserole and it will get thrown out with the turkey carcass.  It’s Thanksgiving after all, and it is a day for family traditions and, possibly, family brawls.

So I set out, light of heart and long of list, to purchase foodstuffs for our feast.  I hied myself to Fresh Market, one of the snootier grocery stores in town.  I reasoned, probably erroneously, that if it’s more expensive, it will taste better.  Actually, I was going to check out their wine selection, which proved to be a major disappointment, but I digress.

It’s a neat little store, laid out sort of like a European market, I suppose.  I started out in the produce aisle and I found myself itching to buy things I never cook with just because they looked neat.  I’ve heard of fingerling potatoes before, so I found myself reaching for them until I remembered I didn’t know what to do with them.  Ditto with the parsnips and the kumquats. 

But the one thing that truly fascinated me was the gentleman buying chestnuts.  I had to wrestle down an overwhelming urge to approach him and ask if was going to roast them over the open fire, but somehow (and you know how hard this is for me!!) I restrained myself.  Chestnuts are nasty looking and I am not sure why you would eat them, roasted or otherwise.  I am sure one of my readers has a Great Uncle Martin who cooked them every Thanksgiving in a casserole with okra and broccoli, but you have your Thanksgiving and I’ll have mine!!  No chestnuts here please.

Anyway, I wandered through the store and bought very little.  I did get a very nice centerpiece for the table and some lovely haricots verts, but other than that, I didn’t even get any wine.  Do you see how snooty I got while I was there though….”haricots verts”??  Come on, this is the Deep South and they’re “green beans” and we cook ‘em to a pulp with a little side meat and some bacon grease!! 

From Fresh Market, I progressed to Winn Dixie to pick up the Thanksgiving Spam…no just kidding.  Seriously, I didn’t see any reason to buy marshmallows at Fresh Market, or any of the other peasant foods on my list, so I headed to WD where folks is folks and haricots verts is green beans.  Also, WD is a fabulous place to watch people.  I was not disappointed.  First of all, it was obviously Seniors Tuesday and I missed the memo, because there was no one under 80 in the store.  No crying children, no runaway toddlers, just octagenarians shuffling around, leaving their carts conveniently in the middle of the aisle so you are forced to wait while they debate the merits of canned shoepeg corn versus canned yellow corn and you know shoepeg is so dear, but it has more fiber and it really gets the bowels going but then you spend more on toilet paper, which really makes it cost even go up, so maybe you should just skip the corn and GET THE HELL OUT OF MY WAY!!! 

Alright, it wasn’t that bad, but there were an awful lot of older folks in there.  I worked my way through the store to the dairy aisle to purchase whipping cream and butter.  I picked up a tub of “Land O’ Lakes” whipped butter and the following voices suddenly spoke in my head:

Dang Bubba, that butter is done give out….you shore whipped it good…I ain’t seen butter get whipped like that since Mother Nature opened up a can of whupass on the Parkay….Wooooeeeee!!!

You see why I take medication. 

After the voices, I decided I better get the heck out of Dodge before they ordered me to do something really wild like grab a Sharpie and write Green Beans on all the “haricots verts” displays.  So I headed to the check out line with my purchases.  I paid and I was wheeling my buggy out, when a voice wafted across the parking lot.  It was the bagboy with Tourette’s, talking violently to his hand as he pushed a buggy across the parking lot.  “One and Two and Five…unh…One and Two and Five…unh…”  I am not sure what his hand had done, but I did not stick around to find out.  I loaded up my groceries and got home quick.

Now I am surrounded by bags and bags of food that I have to start cooking…oh joy oh rapture!!  We’ll be eating at 4:00 tomorrow if anyone gets an urge for an haricot vert…..

I was hanging out after church today, waiting on Tim and Josh to finish unpacking their boy scout stuff, when an acquaintance walked up to me.  “Hey,” she said “you look great.  Have you lost a ton of weight or what?”

Hmmmmm…..”ton of weight”….implying I was Shamu sized before and now I have moved down to Flipper size.  Not exactly a compliment, although I am sure it was intended as such.  Wendi and I have discussed this before, she having received a similar “compliment” after a weight loss.  The word “ton” is not the best choice, since it has the negative, Killer Whale connotation.  Perhaps a better choice of words would be “you are looking so fit today”, giving the person a chance to say “I’ve been working out/snorting coke/taking laxatives/dieting…” or whatever fits the situation.  But don’t say “ton.”

Now that I’ve had time to think, I should have told her I was suffering from a severe rectal abscess.  It’s draining so much, I should have told her, that I can barely sit down.  The doctor says it’s probably going to heal up fine as soon as he cuts away the dead, shit encrusted tissue that is surrounding it.  I can’t see it, I’ll tell her, but the doctor says it’s about 3 inches long and gaping open, with gangrenous tissue protruding from it and green pus pouring out.  I gotta say, it’s been an appetite killer. 
I bet she would go home and lose 5 pounds just from the description!

I get the same tactless comments when I put make up on.  I am not a big cosmetics user; I am way too lazy to take all that time putting crap on, only to take it off again 8 hours later.  So I generally go natural, and only use make up occasionally.  Thus, when I do make an appearance with my face made up, people go “oh my God you look so good today,” leading me to wonder just how bad I looked yesterday.  Is the person saying that, without eyeliner, I look like a nuclear reactor disaster survivor?  I mean, I know I usually look a bit haggard, but I didn’t think it was so bad that the presence of eyeliner changed my appearance so radically.

When someone rhapsodizes about how wonderful I look, I usually respond with “oh, well, that’s because I showered today” or “well, I decided to brush my hair for a change.”  People who don’t know me well usually are taken aback and it derails them temporarily.  They smile and nod and then walk away, not sure of what just happened.

I have a good friend who adopted both of her children.  Her son is absolutely the most gorgeous creature on the planet, with big dark chocolate eyes, fringed with six inch lashes.  He wears glasses, so his eyes are magnified that much more.  He is beautiful.  And dark skinned.  My friend has blond hair and blue eyes.  So you can imagine the rude comments she gets.  She called me earlier this year, as upset as I have ever heard her sound, because someone at the grocery store asked her if she was a foster parent.  I told her she needs to look these people straight in the eye and say “no, he’s mine.  Rico, my yard boy, is so hot I can’t keep my hands off of him.  Lucky my husband is so understanding….wink wink, nudge nudge!!!”  That’s an answer guaranteed to stop the rude and tactless in the world dead in their tracks!! 

I believe I could make a fortune publishing a book on “Snappy Comebacks to the Rude Things People Say.”  When someone says “you’ve lost a ton of weight” tell them how you have used bulimia to your advantage and which emetics work best.  Are they complimenting your hairstyle profusely, as in “your hair looks so great today” tell them how your ex husband tied you up and scalped you after he lit the dog on fire and took all your food stamps and your current style is actually a wig.  A couple of these gems will shut them up forever!!