Driving (Great) Aunt Fay

After Dawn watched last week's Mad Men episode where young Sally Draper drives Grandpa Gene's Lincoln at his urging, Dawn sent me an e-mail note.

"Remind me of that story when your dad made you drive."

Well, it wasn't my dad, it was my great aunt Fay. She made me call her GREAT Aunt Fay with an emphasis on the great. And she was great.

Anywho, she and I were driving to north Louisiana to pick up her daughter at college. I loved those trips because Great Aunt Fay treated me like an adult and seemed to enjoy my company. Plus campus trips were a treat to a small town girl. A 10 or 11 year old girl like me.

It was a 4 hour drive and at some point Great Aunt Fay said she was sleepy and pulled over on the side of the road. She got out of the car, walked over to the passenger side, opened my door and instructed me to trade seats. I thought she was going to take a quick nap and wanted to be more comfortable.

I walked around and sat in the driver seat. The car is still idling.

"You know how to drive?"

No.

"It's easy. This is a straight road. Just drive straight."

I thought she was pulling my leg. GREAT Aunt Fay was also a GREAT prankster.

"See this number right here? The 50? Don't go past that. If someone gets behind you, slow down so they can pass."

She pointed to the seat adjustment lever and I pushed the seat as close as possible. She reached over and pulled the transmission shifter to DRIVE.

We travel about a mile down the two lane highway. "You're a good driver. It's easy, isn't it?"

I am too petrified to speak. The steering wheel seems ungainly in my hands. I don't know how to smoothly move it side to side like experienced drivers do naturally so I perform my best version of how I've seen mom and dad steer.

We move down the road with no more conversation and when I finally get the courage to look over at her, GREAT AUNT FAY IS ASLEEP!

Holy guacamole! Now I know there are only 2 eyes on the road so I remain vigilant and don't look away again. No messing with the radio, no awareness of hot or cold or air vents - just drive.

After awhile, I relaxed my death grip on the wheel and actually enjoyed the drive.

What seemed like hours, GREAT Aunt Fay opened her eyes and declared she had a great nap and asked where we were.

No clue.

"Pull over and stop and I'll drive."

Able to speak again, I asked "How do I pull over?"

Save our wetlands, wear more nutria

You heard me.
That is the tagline for a group promoting the use of nutria products after exterminating the environmentally damaging herbivore rats from Louisiana's waterways.
Use the meat, the fur and even the teeth, says the Righteous Fur spokesperson. Why? It is environmentally responsible and "green" to use everything possible from the nutria carcass.

"The jewelry teeth are available in their original orange, or soaked to attain a tortoise-shell look. They're capped in silver and made into necklaces and earrings."

Because nothing says "I love you" like nutria teeth, right?

Check out my party muscle

My radio boyfriend Jay Thomas appeared on Howard Stern's Sirius satellite radio show today and explained his fun loving ways are because he is from Louisiana. Howard's sidekick Robin Quivers then declared that Jay has "party muscle"!

You people can best believe Louisianaians have a party muscles! And even if dormant, never atrophied.

Oooh, walk into a dive bar with a good jukebox and an old drunk guy with cash falling out his pockets leaning against the bar, all my buds laughing at a table and watch my party muscles quiver.

"I gotcha party muscle right he-yaaaaaa!"

Edit: Party muscles should not be confused with Kegels. But hey, they go together just fine.

"I lost 50 pounds!"*

Say that to a crowd and notice how quickly you gain everyone's attention. First question asked, "How did you do it?"

And everyone of us wants to hear something easy and wonderful like, "Well, I still eat what I want but every Tuesday, between 1 and 2, I eat ONE black jelly bean. It must be black. And the pounds just fell off!"

We've heard about every diet and gimmick and should know better by now but still . . . we want to hear the magical easy secret to weight loss.

Especially if they say, "You know what? One week I forgot the jelly bean and I gained 10 pounds in one day! The next week, I ate the jelly bean as prescribed and 20 pounds slid off in 2 days! I make sure to set my Blackberry alarm so I don't forget that again."

It is simple math. Consume less calories than you expend but where is the fun in that? Exercise? Sensible diet? Puh-lease! We no like!

Please have fun jackin' with folks by sharing your fabulous results in the black jelly bean diet plan. You will be amazed with their gullibility and finally understand how millions are made by the weight loss gurus.

*Going back to the plan and the gym,

I am,

SkitzoLeezra

So glad I don't have a mother-in-law

Happened upon a couple funny blogs dedicated to the angst of having a horrible mother-in-law. Check out The Devil's Daughter-in-Law and Mother In Chronicles for a dose of vitriol.
It is amusing to laugh at other's in-law foibles but really, I cannot relate. Having never been married and a bit older, I cannot fathom someone making my life miserable without my permission. The one mistake I can discern is women, eager to please their husband and wanting approval from his mother, do not set boundaries about inappropriate behavior from the beginning, years pass and bad habits are set.
Oh My Gosh, I would have FUN jackin' with a hateful mother-in-law. I would yank her chain just like I do with drunks. I've had ALL these YEARS to come up with scenarios and smart ass quips.
And I am SO good with saying, "Why are you telling me this? You know that I'll never get the last 5 minutes of my life back and I don't care about your next door neighbor's daughter's children blah blah blah."
Listening to Jay Thomas dismiss people in a rude but somehow funny manner has been my inspiration. Last week he told a caller, "Look, I know you're a parapalegic and all, but I am going to hang up now because frankly, I'm bored." And the caller laughed and thanked Jay and said he loved the show. That, my friend is pure talent.
I insult folks but haven't gotten the knack of having them still like me afterwards.
Future mother-in-laws? Watch your back because I got nuthin' but untapped rage looking for a target.

Babies ruin sitcoms

Ugh! The Office is in the process of jumping the shark by introducing the story line of Pam's pregnancy and her upcoming marriage to Jim. When a child is introduced to a non-family show, it spells the end. Remember Mad About You? The yuppie couple was funny and entertaining but then came the baby stuff and ~~poof~~ down the ratings tube. Friends, same thing. It is amazing that The Office writers are pulling the baby thing so early in the could-have-been-a-long-running-show. Spare us the schmaltz and leave the baby crap to The Learning Channel and Lifetime.

Parental logic

When we were kids, my mom never kept carbonated beverages in the house. Our choice was lemonade, KoolAid, iced tea or water. Dinner at a restaurant or a trip to the movies was a double treat because we could order Coca-Cola!
Once, while grocery shopping with Mom, I asked her to purchase Cokes for us kids. No.
"But whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy"? I pleaded.
"Ya'll just drink 'em."
It stopped my whining but I didn't understand the response.

I reminded Mom of it the other day and she laughed. "I said that?"
Yes.
"Well, I guess it made sense at the time."

Be a man and own it

If you call the President a liar, own it.
If you say that Kanye West is a jackass, stand by it.
So unimpressed with namby pamby guys that shoot off their mouths, get a reaction and then back down and apologize.

The President IS a liar, there is no way he can guarantee all his pie-in-the-sky promises and he knows it. Kanye West IS a jackass and worse.

Your choice

2 lip gloss choices:

Floozy Fruit SLUT

OR

Not 'Til We Marry Berry VIRGIN

Did you appreciate it when I called you a liar?

This last week I heard some many instances of folks saying they "appreciated" an opponent's viewpoint. It is a lie. They are using the wrong word. They acknowledge the contrarian's words but they do not appreciate it. Appreciation would come from a shared opinion.
Stop lying because I am going to call you on it. And if you say that you appreciate my viewpoint, I am going to cough swine flu in your general direction.

Word of the day

Gimpathy - the pity felt for those with handicaps.

--as heard on Jay Thomas' Sirius XM satellite radio show

Quote of the day

We all are stars of our own movies.

--Jay Thomas

Non-fiction snobs

You know any folks that claim that they only read non-fiction? What is that? I suppose they hope it reveals a higher minded approach to literature but it comes off as ignorant arrogance.
Really? Of all the books in the library, they limit themselves to one genre? Imagination is too much for them to comprehend? This aggravates so much I am gonna end here.

What did YOUR parents hit you with?

(Yes, the title has a dangling preposition but it is not about the angle of the dangle, it's about the heat of the meat.)

Anywho, Jay Thomas (my Sirius radio boyfriend) opened the phone lines to listeners after his sidekick revealed that her dad pelted a pack of frozen hot dogs at her. The calls were hilarious.

No frozen hot dogs winged at MY head but Mom liked her rigid plastic hairbrush for butt swats. Unfortunately, she did not concern herself with the bristle angle. One angry snap of plastic ~OR~ the agony of a thousand bristles? Which will it be? It was Russian roulette of the ass cheeks.

I now remind Mom that I will be the one to select the nursing home.

Which came first - Shirley Temple or Child Porn?

After my friend Elizabeth watched the reality show "Toddler and Tiaras", she wondered why all those little girls made the cute pouty face and put their finger in their mouth in front of the judges. She and I agreed that is borderline nasty.

I recalled old Shirley Temple movies with the pouty fakery and postulated that Shirley must be a pageant mom's ideal. Fast forward to today --> my Google image search of Shirley Temple. And now believe Shirley was a whore. Or at least a c*+k tease.

Those inflatable dolls? The ones with raised eyebrows and open mouths? The pin up models with the little girl pose and finger in mouth? Models with dresses that barely cover their pudenda? All that sleaziness can be set at the feet of Shirley Temple. Heck, you can barely find a movie still of her NOT sitting on an old guy's lap.

Child porn is not new. In fact, it is classic.

Doesn't sound right

Heard a little bit of Peter Frampton's "Do You Feel Like We Do?" during my 3 minute work commute this morning and man, I gotta tell ya, I still love it but it just doesn't sound the same as when I listened to the 8 track version over and over, back in the day. The song doesn't seem authentic without the loud telltale 8 Track ~~CLICK~~ during Frampton's 14 minute ride on the voice box.

Good thing about 8 tracks: no flipping of album required, no flipping of cassette, no replay button on CD player. That shit would play all day long.

Bad thing about 8 Tracks: That shit would play all day long when Dad slipped in George Jones on a long drive to camp. It fell under the category of child abuse.