celtic_writer

Lessons of Laundry

So, on this Father's Day 2008, I write about my mother and laundry.

Dottie M. gave certain advice about life, particularly when one is brave enough to venture into the great unknown.

There was always the standard advice about socially acceptable behavior to keep you from looking moronic when sending celebratory greetings: "Never sign a birthday card with a pencil. Always use a pen."

But certain experiences drew sterner proposals for appropriate courses of action:

1) Always find a gas station with a clean restroom,
2) Never frequent a bowling alley,
(and fergawdsakes)
3) Never use a laundromat.

Bingo! All is lost!

Due to the angst of owning a middle-aged bladder, I have visited restrooms of gas stations that would have given the Black Hole of Calcutta a run for its money, only to be saved by more-than-sturdy legs that prevented me from actually having to get near the seat. And I have had the writer's experience of being thrown out of a bowling alley, the result of a blind date with a semi-pro bowler gone bad. He, being very gentlemanly, chose a too-light-for-my-tomboy-strength pink Lady Spalding bowling ball for me to use. When I stepped up to the lane (or should I say plate), it was like I was pitching a big pink softball. It made a perfect arc in the air before crashing down and bouncing to the next lane, and the next lane, and then the next. After management asked us to leave due to my mortal sin of lobbing, I am surprised the fellah actually slowed his car down to drop me off he was in such a rush to get rid of me.

So this past week I did go to a laundromat here in Greenville, SC. While Doug was finishing up some business in town, I tottered off with bags of dirty clothing to The Coin Laundry Inc., an establishment high on a hill that still hosts a Ron Paul for President sign out front.

Inside there are commercial washers, dryers and lots of rules that Dottie M. would have loved. No sitting on tables. Do not take laundry carts outside. Do not allow children to play with laundry carts.

They must make a bloody fortune there. Some washing machines cost $2.50 a load, the larger ones demand $4.25 a pop. There is a cool mammoth machine that will spin the extra moisture out of your towels and jeans and sheets so they dry faster. That costs .50 cents for a three-minute whirl.

You can also observe lots of people stories in such a place. I noticed a man and a woman, with laundry loaded in the next row of washers over from mine. She held him in a far-away field of contempt, answering him with one-syllable words. Yes. No. Uh-huh. Nope. Hmm. He wore a grey stocking cap, a gawdy earring, made a big deal out of buying a soda, and continued giving this woman a whole bunch of lines she'd heard before. She wasn't buying. He talked. She moved to a nearby table to fold laundry. He followed, trying to gossip with her. She matched and rolled socks into little folded balls and dropped them in a basket on the floor. Looked like something she would like to do with him.

A man in a black baseball cap arrived. He was very careful. He carried two big suitcases of dirty clothes, and already has his roll of quarters in a little velvet sack that he pulled from his pocket. His dirty laundry was pre-sorted. He recognized my amateur status by the fact that I had to divide my clothes into appropriate piles before I placed them in the washing machines, plus transform a $20 bill into 80 quarters, a transaction accompanied by loud clanging from a coin-exchange machine on the wall. When his laundry was washed, he divided the colors carefully between three dryers, inserted the precise number of quarters to dry each load, then took his laundry cart with him when he went to use the men's room.

Dryer heat rules are Zen with some Goldilocks thrown in. You need to dry your clothes on medium heat. High is too hot, and low takes too long.

A man sitting nearby read scripture. A children's play area held threadbare toys. The attendent was thorough. She stooped to pick up a small white piece of paper and placed it in a trash can. She carried a set of keys the size of a fist.

Everything hums and whirls there. I bet it is a steamy place in winter. There are cooling fans for summer. I read a few pages of John Steinbeck's Travels with Charley in Search of America and discover the author's method for washing clothes when on the road.

Lessons indeed.

The IOP

When asked, "How many brothers and sisters do you have?" I reply, "Two brothers and a sister." But that is not true. My parents had another little one: the eldest. He is called The Infant of Prague.

Seems way back in the 50s, when an Irish Catholic couple married, they could look on the gift table at their reception and be sure to find a holy relic: a three-foot tall statue of the Infant of Prague.

To be gifted with such a statue meant you would always have money. I guess it goes along the same lines of burying a statue of St. Joseph upside down in the dirt of your front yard so your house will sell. Religion and money...always intertwined.

So this statue of the Infant of Prague went with us on all major moves. From NYC to PA, then on to NJ, CT, MA, MD, and finally to the north shore of Long Island, where he sat on the top shelf of the main foyer coat closet, keeping an eye on all who wished to hang up a coat. When you ventured there to retrieve your wrap, you felt someone was always looking at you. And it startled you to look up and discover the little fellah still on patrol, red crown on head and holy blue ball in hand, monitoring the comings and goings of the household. By that time he had a nickname: The IOP.

After my parents passed, and we all gathered to clean out the house, there existed a huge dilemna: what to do with The IOP. It was an inherited hot potato: you take him; no, you take him...round and round and round. Finally it was decided that, after the house was cleared and sold, sister Kathy would be the transporter of The IOP to the environs of Virginia. Once there, a new home would be determined for the little guy.

It was a rough trip. Somewhere on the New Jersey Turnpike, my sister had to stop short in the little red Sundance she was driving, a defense against the actions of an imbecilic driver. Due to physics, The IOP was thrown from its resting place on the back seat and crashed to the car floor, chipping off a chest part of his royal robe. I remember Kathy driving in to my driveway, The IOP sitting in the passenger seat, the seatbelt securely fastened around his little holy waist. "It's a long story," Kathy said wearily. The IOP still looked regal, despite the treacherous journey.

A long story indeed. Somehow I ended up with The IOP. He is with me, sitting on the shelf of one of my bedroom closets. When I open the door to take out clothes to wear, I look up at him and say, "How ya doin', brother." And he, with the bright blue Zen Dude eyes, seems to say, "Just fine."

Slacker Squirrel

In 1903 Beatrix Potter wrote a story about a squirrel named Nutkin. The story starts: "This is a Tale about a tail—a tail that belonged to a little red squirrel, and his name was Nutkin."

And one of his clan is now living somewhere in my home.

Aunt Pittypat Hamilton had a great statement in the movie Gone With the Wind about Yankees in Georgia. She declared, Southern-belle hand placed melodramatically upon her forehead: "However did they get in?" It works for squirrels too. How did he get in? Perhaps through the front door, left open when I was out on the drive, gathering grocery bags from the Bug to restock the pantry. Or maybe he came down through the chimney. Perhaps Santa showed him the way.

The Black Labbies are very concerned about this intruder. I walked through the living room the other day to find the little varmint sitting right next to Marg's head as she lay snoozing on the couch. I was surprised he didn't have his little squirrelly feet up on the coffee table, using the cable remote to catch the latest doings on Animal Planet. Just my luck. A slacker squirrel. Get a job!

This isn't the first time Mason Neck's wild creatures have paid a visit to this humble abode. A few springs ago I was cleaning up the kitchen, and had some sundries to add to the infamous junk drawer. As I put the stuff in, I noticed a snake, and closed the drawer.

SNAKE!

It was a small black snake, slithering among the coupons and rubber bands, matchboxes and emergency candles. I slowly pulled the drawer out of the cabinet and, grimacing the whole time, straight arms holding the drawer as far away from me as possible, walked down the back wooden stairs to place the container on the ground so the little snake could twirl its way out of the drawer to go eat some bugs or something else FAR AWAY.

This squirrel is a juvenile (delinquent...probably tries my clothes on when I am not home) and is quick, not willing to be caught. Have been researching tips on how to catch him so I can release him out where he belongs. I have read that squirrels don't like mothballs. My mother tried that with a skunk in the garage, and the skunk slept through the whole undignified ordeal. So it looks like it has to be a safe trap cage with some peanuts in it. Or maybe the lure is a year's subscription to Ranger Rick. I wonder if they have gift certificates.

PHOTO: Squirrel Nutley, illustration from the book by Beatrix Potter, from Gutenberg.org

A Skate, A Fish, and Mr. G.

The state of North Carolina issued me a fishing license.

Seems you can spend 10 bucks and take your chances for ten days to try your luck at creating a great fish story.

Doug got a license to fish too, and we went halfsies on a long fishing pole, two hooks and a weight, purchased from a swarmy fellah at the local Ocracoke Island tackle shop. When asked what one should use for bait when fishing from the shore in ocean environs, the fish store chap said, "Squid." He reached into a nearby cooler and pulled out a frozen box that contained creatures that looked like the appetizer we had at dinner the night before: calamari.

So off we went, over the dunes and down to the shore, carrying our fold-up chairs, chilled bait and fishing pole, ready for action. As we positioned ourselves at the water's edge, I noticed a man in a yellow baseball cap fishing at a place not far away. You could tell he knew what he was doing. He stood stoicly in the water, casting his line way out into the waves, and patiently waiting.

The ocean is rough around Ocracoke Island. Doug strode down into the water and cast the line out. A few minutes later a wave came along and knocked him so hard that he almost lost his bathing costume. He recovered enough to maintain position while keeping his composure, but eventually the line came in empty.

Fish: 1. Us: 0.

My turn. With new squid on the line, I walked into the water, and with my softball-throwing arm, cast the line out as far as I could. Then a rogue wave hit me and I sat down hard on my butt, like babies do when they are learning how to walk. The fellow fishing nearby must've thought the Village Idiots Convention was meeting in town, and had given its members the afternoon off to fish.

Doug got the first bite. It was a skate, those beautiful flat black fish, round as an apple pie pan, with a thin whip tail. It had beautiful eyes. It blinked. It was nabbed, and looked scared. Doug unhooked it, and with the help of a piece of wood found of the beach, coaxed it back in the water. It skimmed happily back into the deep. I swear that fish smiled.

After a few more casts, I felt two sharp tugs on the line, and knew I had hooked something big. Hoping it wasn't an old boot, or a toilet seat that had been hanging around Davey Jones' Locker since WWII, the catch was the smallest, feistiest fish I had ever seen, clinging greedily to the calimari, which was bigger than it. This fish was white, and had a yellow head, and did not want to let go of the bait. Finally it was coaxed to release its treasure, and was soon back in the water, swimming with the skate, both probably slapping their fish knees in glee, laughing at us.

Have always thought fishing to be great fun, but have to say I am used to fishing in fresh, quiet waters. When I was a child, my father would take my brothers and I to numerous "fishing derby" events, usually hosted by the Boy Scouts, an organization that accepted my brothers as members. 'Cept I was the one who caught all the fish. I think that is because the fish knew I always throw them back.

When I was 16, I went with a high school friend, Zena, and her family, to a place called Six-Mile Lake, north of Toronto. You could only get there by boat. It was so remote you had to make noises when you walked to the outhouse in the middle of the night to scare the rattlers away. Zena's father (known as "Mr. G", 'cause "Grot-Zakzrewski" was a bit long on the tongue for most people) and I were great pals, and we would go fishing. He was originally from Poland, had been from a wealthy family in the old country, lost it all in the war, made it through the concentration camps, came here with nothing, dug potatoes in Maine to exist, even though he was a skilled metallurgist. He and his wife made their way in the U.S., did well, adopted my friend Zena and built a good life.

He and I were like Mutt and Jeff...my 5'10" to his 5' 2". "A-Mare-ica," he'd call. "Come. We go fish." Off we'd wander at 6 a.m., to sit on a smooth, rocked shoreline, catching bass after bass (throwing them all back) as we talked about life and Poland and America and school and his '57 Roadmaster Buick and music and Johnny Cash. He loved Johnny Cash. Eventually we'd sit side-by-side, our feet in the cold, cold water and just be quiet.

Christmas Shopping with Oliphant

Now that Thanksgiving is over, all the garlic mashed potatoes have been consumed, and no one wants to look at turkey again until next time, thoughts turn to Christmas.

Back in my younger days, I worked retail one Christmas season. I could wait at least another millennium before that ever happens again. I was employed to assist in the mens furnishings department of a very fashionable clothing store in an upscale mall in Chevy Chase, Maryland. For those of you who know me, that's funny enough. But wait, it gets better.

Every morning we were lined up and our appearance "appraised" by this six-foot-three German amazon named Gert. Gawd help ya if you had a hole in your stocking, wore a wrinkled piece of garment, or had a hair out of place. I am surprised the woman didn't open your mouth and examine your teeth, just in case you were lying about your age. Plus Gert had this thing about eyeshadow, and insisted we females wear it. "It makes a voman's eyes pop out of her head," Gert would tell us in her Arnold accent. "The customers vill love it." We, the shop help, looked at each other with confused expressions. Who the hell wants to be assisted by buggy-eyed women?

With our eyes, to the best of our knowledge, still in their sockets, we were released each morning to assist the general public in buying extremely overpriced gifts for loved ones near and far. The people were astonishing. It was as if they hung a huge sign above the store's front door that read, "Please come in and be rude...and destroy the place while you're at it." They were snotty and nasty, to us and each other. People in $1000 suits pushing and shoving to be able to be the first to buy extremely foul-smelling aftershave. A woman dropping a shirt on the floor cause it bored her and it was just too much trouble to put it back on the shelf. You wanted to blow a whistle, have all the customers line up, and simply group slap the crew of them. By the end of each day, the section of men's ties looked like a snakepit, and no employee could leave the premises until each tie was refolded and back in place.

There was another rule: if you sold it to 'em, you had to wrap it for 'em. I wrapped so many packages that Christmas, I think it is the reason that if I wrap a present for you today, it's because I really like you. Picture some haughty matron in a fur coat tapping the floor with one of her $300 shoes and sighing a lot because you were taking so long to wrap the 27 things in her order that you were making her late for her nail appointment.

But, being Irish, I did have a bit of fun with some of the real jerks. On the Saturday before Christmas, the action in the store was 100% Grade-A Bedlam. I was ordered to people the cash register by the section called "Underthings for Men." A surly self-important chap with about 47 pairs of packaged undershorts walked up to the counter, slapped them down, threw his American Express Card at me and declared, "I am in a hurry." I looked at the card. It said, "Mr. Wright." I looked at him, smiled sweetly and said, "Ah, my mother always told me I'd meet you someday."

He screamed for the manager, the police, anyone in authority who could assist him. The manager, a friend of mine, came to the rescue. He could tell the guy was a total doink, but listened carefully to the story, and managed to keep a straight face when he demanded, "Mary, I want to see you in my office." We made it to the shoe department, then around the corner to where the shoe stock sat when he burst out laughing. I had to give him the tissue paper from a shoebox so he could wipe his eyes from laughing so hard.

But there was one fellow who made that season jolly. On that same Saturday, I noticed a man, as stoic as a Zen monk, waiting his turn to be waited on. He was calm. I helped him find everything he needed, and he smiled as I pushed the buttons on the cash register. I remember he inquired about how I was doing in all the madness. He handed me his credit card, and it simply read "Oliphant."

I remember I read the name, looked up at him and smiled. I always admired his work, as he spared no one, "liberal nor conservative, sinner nor saint." And he signed the credit card slip, and drew one of his famous tiny ducky characters at the bottom of the sheet, with the words, "Have a Merry Christmas."

Image: Red Barns, Claude Monet (French, 1840-1926)

Exploding Turkeys During Cold Season

Talk abounds in northern VA about the menu for the annual Thanksgiving clan gathering here a week from tonight.

I have been contemplating frying a turkey, a process much different from the traditional baking method.

According to The Food Channel, one must purchase two hundred dollars worth of equipment and supplies in order to dunk the unsuspecting bird in boiling peanut oil for about 45 minutes. And, according to the gent on cable, one should also have a fire extinguisher close by, just in case the turkey is too tubby for the amount of oil in the pot, causing spillover into the heating unit and a must-do call to the local fire department.

There is also talk of not-quite-defrosted turkeys exploding when placed in hot oil, blasting bird innards to the yards of neighbors, who might think there'd been a drive-by turkeying and call the authorities.

There are also lots of people sneezing here. The cold season has started, and every ah-choo reminds me of the unique remedy touted by my grandfather, John Leo Casey.

Pop Casey, as he was known, was a short Irish fellow from Jersey City who worked as a dispatcher for the Pennsylvania Railroad. He was a crusty gent, and at 5' 2" tall, called everyone he met "Shorty." He lived to get a rise out of you.

One Thanksgiving during my childhood, my mother Dottie M. came upon a Three Stooges-like scene of her father and my 7-year-old self out on his driveway. He was holding me back with his hand on my head and I was swinging my 7-year-old arms with all my might in an desperate attempt to punch him in the stomach, the result of him ticking me off about something during that happy holiday celebration. Dottie M., appalled by my un-lady-like behavior, commanded me to stop. Pop said, "Leave her alone. There is something wrong with a kid who doesn't have any spirit."

Pop would tick you off. Then, assured of your strength of character, let you in on the secrets of life. Like how to cure the common cold.

According to Pop: "If you have a cold, swallow a thumb-full of Vicks Vapo-rub and wash it down with a swig of kerosene. It'll cure whatever ails ya."

I remember sitting there, three white dots and a big cartoon balloon above my head, thinking, "This is totally whacked."

But he did use his own remedy. I witnessed it. Plus the man smoked three packs of unfiltered Pall Malls a day...and lived to be 84.

Don't anyone light a match.

Image: Turkey, by Ms. Vicky Kate Gillen, then age 8.

Loo Rolls, Norman and the 300 Baud Modem

We humans are a goofy lot. That's what I like about us.

The stories we relate describing our idiosyncrasies are keepers.

One favorite is told by my friend Mike. Seems he, a true Yank, was visiting a good friend in England. Being the gentleman he is, Mike offered to do errands for his buddy while she was at work. Did she need anything from the store?

"Yes," his friend replied. "Please stop and pick up some loo rolls."

Loo rolls? Hmmm, Mike thought. What the hell is a loo roll? Must be a carbohydrate.

Off he went in search of baked goods. Mike walked down the street and entered a local confectionery. The woman behind the counter offered to wait on him.

"May I help you, dear?" she asked.

"Yes," Mike replied. "I would like a dozen loo rolls."

Attention Mr. and Mrs. America, and all the ships at sea. The loo is a restroom in Great Britain. And loo rolls are known as toilet paper here in the States.

The lady-in-waiting laughed so hard, she gained the attention of the hard-working baker out the back, who came forward, along with other work mates, curious about the ruckus. Soon they were slapping each other in merriment, wiping tears from eyes.

Mike is a very smart guy. He laughed too.

But Mike shouldn't feel alone. I will tell one on myself.

It has to do with modems.

Back in the mid-80s, desktop publishing was ramping up. No more typesetting the old way. Running galleys of proofs through linotype machines, flipping a coin over who was gonna take on the thankless job of cleaning the darkroom processor of crusty old hypo and fix. Those days were gone. Back then you could actually create a type file on an IBM computer and send it to a service bureau for processing over a telephone line via a little machine called a modem.

A 300-baud modem from a company called Hayes.

Back then it seemed like magic. You could send the job, then drive over to the next town and pick up the fresh clean galleys in the morning. And for someone who now makes her living via technology and programming, it is totally ridiculous that this little mysterious machine terrified me.

It did.

The first service bureau I used was run by this very tall geeky fellah named Norman. Poor old Norman has skin tone that looked like he hadn't seen the sun or gotten a decent night's sleep since the Eisenhower Administration. Norman ran his business out of his home, and had written two phone numbers on a piece of paper for me. One was the modem line and the other his home phone number. But he forgot to indicate which phone number was which.

I had a job that had to be processed by noon the next day. It was 3 a.m. I remember sitting for an hour staring at Norman's phone numbers, trying to decide the one to dial. You are being ridiculous, Mary, I told myself. It has to be the bottom number. No, it's the top number. Round and round I went. Finally, I typed the second number into the computer screen and hit the Send button.

The phone rang. And rang. I waited for the scritchy modem connection sound. The phone continued to ring. Finally I was relieved to hear the line connect, then horrified to hear poor old Norman's very sleepy voice say, "Hello."

I froze. I sat there holding my breath. I thought he could hear me through the modem.

"Hello!" Norman demanded. I was turning blue from lack of oxygen. Please hang up, Norman, I thought to myself, before I pass out.

After a few more hellos, Norman disgustedly said, "goodbye" and hung up. Gasping for breath, I was able to grab a pen and mark the top number as the modem line. Then I waited an hour before I transmitted the job. I didn't want geeky Norman to know it was me.

As I tell my students, we all gotta start somewhere.

Monkey in a Mets Suit

An excursion to a particular branch of a bank located here in Northern VA is best saved for special occasions. Like holidays. Such a stop always delivers the soul-enlightening experience of the weird.

Yesterday, I motored to the financial establishment, and waited on line with the myriad of other folks prepared to conduct financial transactions. Soon the mass of humanity parted enough for me to catch a glimpse of the lobby table available for folks to lean on while they ready their paperwork. There stood a man, and on the table next to him sat a monkey. Yes, a real-live monkey. The man was dressed in khakis. The monkey wore a little New York Mets uniform.

He was not as big as a chimp, and there was a hole in his Met's pants so his curly tail could fit through. And he sat there quietly, surveying the crowd, his coconut-shaped head sporting wiry hair. The bank manager was on the lookout, but so consumed with demanding customers that he didn't have the time to say to the monkey's uncle, "Get that ape outta my branch."

The older gentleman on line in front of me noticed too. A confused look on his face, he asked,

"Is that a monkey?

To which I gave an educated reply,

"Yep."

The interrogation continued.

"What's a monkey doing in a bank?"

More thoughtful response.

"I dunno."

"And why is he wearing a Mets uniform?"

"Must be a fan," I replied.

There was another wild animal in the environs. Her name was Rachel. Human, and about three years old, she was queen of her own reign of terror. Running around screaming, entering offices where bank personnel were conducting loan business, taking a stapler off a desk and throwing it on the floor of the bank lobby. Rachel's father seemed unconcerned. "Rachel, don't do that," he said quietly, then turned back to the teller and his business.

The little minky watched Rachel. She scared him. He put his little monkey hand on his owner's arm for security as the man continued to fill out his deposit slips.

When Rachel pulled down the steel stand that holds the sign, "Please Wait Here for the Next Available Teller," justice prevailed. "Sir, please take that child out of here," the bank manager demanded.

The monkey stays. YES!

Toothache and a Teenaged Bird

So I motored away from class yesterday afternoon, straight into the clutches of Dr. F. and the teeth-gritting sounds of his dental equipment.

I won't bore you with the gruesome details. When I left his office, I was sure that, later on, I was gonna feel like this:

I did what any maimed-in-the-mouth Celt would do under such circumstances. I went to the Shoppers Food Warehouse. I purchased $48.17 worth of supplies, just in case I should expire later in the evening. Heaven forbid my lifeless body should be found in a house with an empty pantry. Also stopped at the Lorton Shell to gas up the Mighty Bug with $38.54 worth of petrol. Saints save us that my expired remains should be found in a house where the small blue car in the drive had been starved, its gas gauge pointing to E.

Oh. I also chased a teenaged bird around the basement.

The condition of the homefront seemed pretty standard when I opened the front door and schlepped the groceries and a leather sack full of hernia-enducing tech books up the six stairs to the main hall. The Labbies circled around, wigglin' and wagglin' and grinning with their pink tongue smiles. "Good woman, we are happy to see you, but we have been sleeping all day like lazy lumps in the cool air, and now we are hungry, and, after a Purina repast, will require a gallop to the river so we can eat minnows."

OK.

I changed my clothes and fed them each a cup 'o dog chow. Soon the front gate was opened, and they romped out to the street towards the Potomac. They galloped and sniffed and peed and pranced like circus horses. I trudged behind. It was 96 degrees, and the novocaine was wearing off.

After our return, Walt was soon asleep on the floor at the top of the stairs of this split-level. The lad was fat, full and foolish, dreaming about chasing bunnies and duckies. I stepped over him to retrieve the mail I had left on the kitchen table, and on the way back to my office, I saw it.

A bird. Sitting between two slats of the bannister, about five inches away from Walt's dozing nose.

Not a chick, yet it wasn't fully grown, as it still had dorky-looking fuzz on its head and wings. "What are you doing there, little bird?" I asked it, like it was gonna tell me. My guess was perhaps it flew in the front door when I was schlepping in the groceries, a wrong turn while trying new wings. Or maybe it just walked in, hopped up the stairs, and didn't know where else to go. Its round eyes were large. And very scared.

Walt, brilliant watchdog, continued to slumber as I stepped over him again to get a closer look at the fledgling. It let me pet its head, and stroke its left wing.

Then Walt, still in sleep, sneezed.

The blast from the Labbie schnoz blew the little bird backwards, and it opened its wings and drifted down the space between the split-level stairs to the hard cold floor of the basement. Freak flag flying, it started squawking.

And running. Fast. Like it had sneakers on.

All around the basement. It encountered a hairball on the floor that was about the size of my head. This caused an abrupt change in direction so it could bump into a leg of a beach chair. Turning west, it squeezed itself through an open space between the spokes of the front wheel of my bike, then jumped into a nearby open box and sat in an old pot.

What to do?

Well, I knew it could fly, a little, and it could definitely run, so maybe the fat cats in the neighborhood wouldn't be able to keep up. It didn't belong in the basement, so I carefully picked up the box and gently took it out to the side yard through the cellar door.

I put the box down on the ground near the big oak tree by the driveway, and scooped Chicken Little out of the pot and placed it in the grass. It took one look at me, as if to say, "Sayounara, suckah" and ran up the side of the oak tree. Like you or I walking up a wall, wearing suction-cup shoes.

Pass the Advil, please.

Alfalfa Photo: http://www.andychristie.com/graphics/toothache.jpg

Hungry ATMs and Back Fat

It's been an interesting day.

The Mighty Bug and I stopped at the very convenient drive-thru ATM this afternoon after class to get some fast cash from checking, as one option suggests on the brightly-buttoned banking screen. I fed my ATM card into the slot, then heard a horrible gnashing sound. Methinks the machine missed lunch, 'cause it chewed my card into liquid plastic. I swear I heard a metallic burp.

OK. I parked the blue Bug between two white lines in the lot and walked around the corner to the bank lobby. Inside, I was not alone. The bank manager, already surrounded by four other customers, took one look at me and said, "Oh no. You too?" Seems the ATM machine must've been missing its carbs, as it had greedily consumed the ATM cards of four others before me. Temporary ATM cards for all.

Seems other machines are hungry, too. Today, in The New York Times, in an article titled Do My Knees Look Fat to You? it is reported that thin humans are now opting for liposuction of the knees and back.

Gewd Lawd.

I don't know about you, but I was born with fat knees, and they will always be with me. My parents gave them to me. They couldn't help it. And back fat? It sounds like something some savvy southern cook would place in a frying plan while prepping some amazing meal. But I suppose the term "back fat" doesn't sound as horrible as the description of the current liposuction process, where your fat is melted first before being stripped from your body.

Why do people do this?

None of us get out of here alive.

One of my students, Erica, commented today about how a friend of hers had liposuction on her stomach. "Her stomach is perfectly flat now," she reported. "But now the fat goes to her back and hips and butt. It always finds someplace to sit."

Methinks it might settle in some people's heads.