DOWN LIKE DISCO

A while back, a controversial video surfaced of a woman dragging her child through a Verizon store with the help of one of those backpack leashes. As I watched this disengaged mother pull her limp child, I was horrified that I wasn’t horrified. Instead, I thought to myself “I totally get that.” Apparently the tyke wasn’t listening and decided to pull the old “go limp” maneuver that I myself perfected as a college student whenever someone tried to throw me out of a bar.

My former self would have been outraged that a mother would do that. However, my current self has actually hidden from Piper to make her think that I’ve left her behind. My former self thought that if I was in public and I knew your child’s name, you were doing something wrong. My current self would be able to retire many times over if I had a dime for the number of times I’ve been in public and said “Piper, Piper, Piper, Piper, Piper, Piper, Piper, Piper.” It’s safe to say that my former self was an idiot.

Someone once told me that, aside from Brook Shields and Tom Cruise, no one really talks about the dark side of motherhood. And they’re right. Remember in The Empire Strikes Back when Luke is hanging onto that upside down Space Needle thingy? His hand’s just been cut off and he’s all kinds of sweaty and windblown and the only one there to offer help is Daddy Darth Vader? He extends his hand, and says “join me.” And you can see the desperation on Luke’s face he ponders his choice between physical death and spiritual death. In the end, chooses to plummet into the darkness below.

You may be thinking, “wow, you sure have put a lot of thought into the Empire Strikes Back.” I find that scene pretty poignant, not only because of the limitations of Mark Hamill as an actor (everything was downhill after he starred in Sarah T. Portrait of a Teenage Alcoholic with Linda Blair), but because sometimes I truly believe that Piper is trying to take my spirit and to crush it. Those are the days when "there is no escape. Don't make me destroy you," sounds like sound parenting to me.

I know that if I really wanted to take some drastic steps, I could get this child under control. But like Luke, I choose instead to fall into the unknown hoping to come out on the other side. However, my unknown is actually going to my bedroom, locking the door, and reading celebrity gossip magazines. I don't know if that would have worked for Luke. It certainly would have put a different spin on the movie, but would have totally explained the gay-ness of Return of the Jedi.

In my scenario, reading gossip about Jennifer Aniston's potential love child, prevents me from embracing my inner Darth. I always try to remember that I am the adult, but there is just something about having a 3 year-old scream “you aren’t my friend anymore!” at the top of her lungs can drive you over the edge of your very own Space Needle thingy. Once after being told that “I was a bad mommy,” I actually gave Piper the finger. I threw my kid the Rockefeller. I figured that she doesn’t know what it means and lacks the dexterity to imitate it. It’s definitely better than the time I muttered “fuck you” under my breath, and as she walked away I heard “you fuck you.” You may send my Mother of the Year certificate to me via email.

But at the end of the day, I love my kid more than anything. I just hope that by the time we get along I'm not half man, half machine. Although it would be cool to have James Earl Jones as my voice. Everyone would do as I say.

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IT'S JUST A CAT

Continuation of the animal thing from earlier. I don't know how to be brief. Deal.

My family was so bad at dealing with cartoon animals that you would think we’d have stayed away from the living, breathing kind, but oh no. Once over a few beers, my Dad and I figured up how many cats that I’d had, compared with how many cars he’d wrecked. I won by a nose.

Over the course of my childhood, I went through 16 cats. Either they got too cozy on wheels of the family cars, wandered into the dog’s pen or just decided that they were better off taking their chances in the wild. We had a couple of canine tragedies along the way, but thankfully, they were few and slightly more typical. Except for the time our black Labrador, Smut went missing. We searched for hours. Finally, we found him in the neighbor’s yard tied to a tree. Our neighbor was getting ready to shoot him with a bow and arrow, Nugent style. Apparently, she had some pet ducks and unbeknownst to us, Smut had been eating them. Grandma had had enough and was ready to take out the duck menace, when my Dad arrived. I think that it was one of the few times my Dad diffused a situation without using the word “motherfucker.”

Whenever one of my cats would wander off or meet an untimely end, my Dad would usually pat me on the head and say, “It’s just a cat. I’ll go out to the dumpster after dinner and get you a new one.” And he would. Cats were expendable in our household. But there was one instance when my parents really did try to spare my feelings when one of my cats did a disappearing act. I had a big, beautiful tabby cat named Mitchell that decided to go on a walkabout one day, "don't tell me what I can't do!" we heard him yelling as he ran down the dirt road from our house in one of those hind-leg kitty wheelchairs. Oh wait, that was Lost, nevermind.

After weeks of mourning my lost furry friend, my Mom and Dad surprised me when they "found" Mitchell. They proclaimed that all sadness could now end. Except for one thing, it wasn't Mitchell. They'd tried and failed at the classic parenting grift: getting another cat that looked like Mitchell and trying to pass him off, as if all tabby cats looked the same. Nice try, but just because I was four didn't mean I was a sucker. In my childish wisdom, I began to call him “Mitchell II.” They kept asking me why I was calling him Mitchell II and I just said "because he's not Mitchell." 

Through the years, we went through Mitchell III, Mitchell IV, etc., But it was Mitchell VII that has entered into Kitty Cat lore with his extraordinary struggle for life, and his untimely death. I hear that they are going to make a movie out of it called Mitchell:Swamp of Justice but they haven't decided if it's going to be on Lifetime: Television for Women or SciFi. Either way, it's going to be some goooooood watchin'. If it is on Lifetime I hope that they get Melissa Joan Hart to play my Mom, and if it's on SciFi I hope that it's Dina Meyer from Starship Troopers. I don't think that she's too busy these days. Maybe she can squeeze it in between Web of Desire and Saw IV.

Anyway, it started because we had Mitchell living illegally with us in our apartment in Raleigh. And while my Mom likes to think of herself as a bad-ass, the truth is, she's really not a rule breaker at heart. Having that cat in our apartment tore her nerves apart. It wasn't even like we weren't supposed to have animals, we just hadn't paid a pet deposit. But after four months of being completely preoccupied with the situation, writing scenarios in her head for the landlord of why we had this cat, she just couldn't take it anymore and we took the cat to her boyfriend's house in White Lake.

Now if you aren't from North Carolina, one thing that you need to be briefed on is that there are certain sections of our coastal areas that yes, may have a lake, but chances are also have a swamp directly across the road. So while the lake is really cool, it's best to have a lookout while everyone goes in for an afternoon swim. Usually, if you see something that looks like a tire floating in the water, it's not a tire and you should get out. When a coastal community lives with alligators (not to be confused with their more aggressive cousin, the Crocodile Dundee), occasionally things can go missing. Like small pets and everyone once and again a small child, but even the guys that hang around the gas station will tell you that almost never really happens all that often, except when it does.

So Mitchell really seemed to really like the lake house, hung out pretty close to Keanu and things were great for awhile. Well, apparently as Mitchell grew more comfortable in his new surroundings, he decided that it would be prudent to go exploring, and exploring he did a-go. And, like a dumb ass the first place he went was right across the street to the swamp. He did some cat stuff and climbed a tree and went out on a limb. And just like when stupid humans do it, that limb broke and dumped him right into alligator soup. Yet somehow, miraculously, Mitchell survived. He swam into the swamp onto land and found a safe place to cry. And cry, and cry and cry. You know, sound carries really well over stagnate water.

So now imagine as a kid trying to sleep listening to your cat crying that mournful cat cry from a swamp across the street. Now imagine my Mom trying to sleep and being constantly woke up by her daughter pleading to go and get him. "They're going to eat him, Mommy." I cried. "PLEASE!" At first she was very consoling, at 3 in the morning I think she was ready to shoot the cat to get him and me to shut up. Eventually, she shut the windows and turned on the air conditioner so we couldn't hear him. First thing in the morning though, she was greeted with "Mommy are you going to go get Mitchell? Please?" Finally after breakfast, my Mom and her boyfriend (who for the record, I adored) armed with only a raw hot dog and a pillowcase loaded themselves in the only vessel they had, a blow up raft and set off for the swamp and Operation Pet Rescue.

Those two paddled their way over there and they were both shaking so bad that they almost tipped themselves over a couple of times. The minute the raft hit the water a couple of gators popped up to see what was going on, but it was by no means a scene from Lake Placid. They seemed to be saying, "hey while you guys are here, could you shut that cat up? Thanks."

They finally reached where Mitchell was and my Mom lured him into the pillowcase with the hot dog. When he finally realized that he'd been captured, he freaked out. He looked a lot like a cartoon cat in a sack. Paws poking from every direction and my Mom holding the sack at arm's length. Over the water I heard her say "If this cat comes out of this bag, he's staying over here."

Once we got him back to the house, Mitchell was one grateful kitty. He was very sweet and stayed right by the house...and that lasted all of about two weeks. He pulled his swamp stunt again one weekend and it replayed in pretty much the same way as before except my Mom flatly refused to be apart of Operation Pet Rescue II: Electric Boogaloo. So her boyfriend and one of his friends brought a cooler of Budweiser along for the ride (they actually loaded it into the raft and took it with them to have a beer break once they got into the swamp). And once again, Mitchell was rescued from certain death, this time a little slower and without dinner but he made it out alive, which was about all he could ask for at this point.

Lather, rinse and repeat. Mitchell had been sticking around the house for a good bit until one day I saw him dart across the road. "Oh no you don't," I said. Having been told that under no circumstances would there be any more rescues for this cat, I chased after him only to watch as he climbed an old tree on the edge of the swamp. Higher and higher Mitchell climbed until he reached a limb that seemed like a great place to perch and check out the neighborhood. The whole time he was climbing the tree, I was yelling after him, admonishing him "to remember what happened last time you did this." Just as that dumb-assed cat settled in, I heard the crack of old rotten wood giving way as it dumped the limb and Mitchell into the swamp. I stood there shaking my head waiting to lecture him when he came to the surface. But then there seemed to be a slight commotion under the surface of the water, and then quiet. I waited a while, but Mitchell never showed up for his lecture. It was one of the first times that I was actually pissed off at an animal for getting killed because of his pee brain. But that didn't mean that I wasn't upset. I ran home crying trying to tell the story through hyperventilation. My Mom was great about comforting me, but we both kind of agreed that it was bound to happen. Then, she said that after dinner she'd go to the dumpster and get me another cat. Enter Mitchell VIII.

Just as an end note, I am currently on Mitchell IX. He's outlasted every other Mitchell at 15 years old. I think a lot of that has to do with the fact that he's an indoor cat and isn't exposed to car engines, wheels, stray dogs, alligators, owls, barn fires and natural disasters, although he does battle a wicked case of hairballs. He's still pretty active, but he is a gigantic prick. No one likes him but me. You know the saying "the good die young and pricks live forever?" Well that was pretty much meant for Dick Cheney and Mitchell. He's that evil. When he was a kitten, my arms were so scratched that I looked like a heroin addict. He's a jerk, but occasionally, I do love him. My husband says after he dies, no more 'Mitchell.'

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THE HAPPIEST PLACE ON EARTH

I love animals. I really do. You can ask anyone that knows me, and they’ll tell you if you’ve got a sad animal story, you’d just better hold it until I am out of the room, buddy. And then you'll say, “I’m not your ‘buddy,’ friend." To which I'll reply, “I’m not your ‘friend,’ pal.” Then we’ll glare at each other and walk away, stopping only to briefly look one more time at one another over our shoulder.

But really, I can’t watch anything on the Discovery Channel or Animal Planet and I have to be very careful about which Disney movies I watch. Once, while channel surfing, my husband and I caught one of those old Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom specials. It started great, like all nature shows do. It was about some place in Africa where once a year this fruit ripens and falls off trees onto the ground where it ferments. All the animals in this delightful place eat the fruit, get drunk and turn Africa into a virtual Rue Bourbon. Basically, it was a blooper reel of drunk animals falling into each other and passing out. In other words, it was hilarious.

Then, all of a sudden, Marlin Perkins takes on a dramatic tone and starts talking about some oncoming drought. Faster than you can say Jeff VanVonderen, I see families of disoriented animals dying on my television set. As my eyes started to well, Mark frantically searched for the remote. Tears began streaming down my face, as Marlin “animal killer” Perkins detailed the death of a baby duckling from dehydration. BabyDuckHaterPerkins then proceeded to show me his carcass covered in flies. “What kind of show is this?” I screamed at the TV. “Why couldn’t the camera crew just give him some water? You know they had some!” The TV then zoomed in on carnage of the entire dead duck clan. I wailed. At this point, Mark gave up looking for the remote and just charged the cable box, changing the channel manually. I think that he tried to calm me down with some “Circle of Life” talk, but soon realized that wasn’t the way to go.

Ever since then, the minute, née, the second there is even a hint of animal shenanigans on the TeeVee, it doesn’t matter where in the house he is, I hear “TURN THE CHANNEL!” almost immediately. Those Sarah McLachlan ASPCA commercials? “TURN THE CHANNEL!” Promo for Animal Cops: Detroit? “TURN THE CHANNEL!” Commercial for any Disney movie? “TURN THE CHANNEL!” Yeah, you heard that right. I don’t do Disney. Frankly, I think that Disney is a little rough. I mean, did you see Finding Nemo? I don’t want to spoil anything for you here, but were you aware that Nemo’s Mom and siblings got fucking eaten in the first 30 seconds of the movie? That’s not even accounting for some of the incredibly twisted and sad old school stuff they pawned off on us as kids. Not just cartoons, I’m looking at you Dumbo, but live action movies like Old Yeller and Where the Red Fern Grows. What the fuck was going on in the 50s & 60s?

But yeah, when I went to see The Lion King, it was pretty great being in the audience with about 100 totally freaked out kids when they killed off Simba’s Dad. Smooth move, Ex-Lax. And yes, I cried. Well, it was sad. And when Simba thought it was his fault, and then there was that shitty Elton John song, well it was just too much to take.

I will say that I don’t think that my animosity toward Disney is all Walt’s fault. I think that it may, it MAY have something to do with the Bambi incident of ’77. Disney re-released this beloved, screwed up classic and my Mom thought it would be a great idea to take me to see it. Because you know, I was so good with dealing with animal tragedy, real, imagined and cartooned. Everything was going OK until the end when the fuck-nuts at Disney decided to shoot Bambi’s Mom. Which made me cry, because I was a little kid, and they killed Bambi’s Mom. But being four and wrapped up in my own problems as little kids are prone to be, I failed to noticed the meltdown that my own, very much alive Mother was having in the seat next to me. See, my parents were going through a separation during the time frame of Disney’s re-release (I don’t think that one had anything to do with the other) and I guess that Linda was harboring some complex feelings about the whole thing. Because after Bambi’s Dad came galloping through the forest to save the day, the next thing I knew, my Mom was standing up in the theater screaming at the screen. “Well now you come back! You sonofabitch! Now, after the baby’s been fed and the diapers have been changed, now you come back! Well I don’t think so!” My Mom snatched me up out of my seat and we left the theater with Thumper, Bambi and that sonofabitch Dad of his looking back at us. I really don’t know exactly how Bambi ends, I just sort of assumed that it kind of ended there.

Needless to say, after that I tended to shy away from Disney. I was never very fond of Mickey or Minnie. I always thought it was freaky to wear their ears on my head and I never, ever dreamt of going to Disney Land or World when I was a kid. Maybe I just thought of it as a place where you got on “It’s a Small World” and your Mom yelled at all the characters as you zoomed by. As an adult, I just resent Disney because they took great fairy tales by Hans Christian Andersen and the Brothers Grimm and made them into happy-slappy movies with sleeping bag tie-ins. If you get a chance, read the real Little Mermaid or Snow White and Rose Red. That’s right, bitch had a sister. And let me tell you, the ending’s aren’t the same, but they are wonderfully twisted. Not Crispin Glover reading Jack and Jill twisted, but twisted. But I shouldn’t be too hard on Disney, they do love to kill off the parents of main characters afterall.

Believe it or not, this entry doesn’t end here, but I’d really like to hold your attention, so I’ll post the rest in a couple of days and I swear it won’t be about Disney.

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OH FOR F@$K'S SAKE! 6.05.09

Let me preface this with, I’m not stupid and I like Chelsea Handler, or should I say, I did. While I will give her mad props for the title of her book, Are You There, Vodka? It’s Me, Chelsea, at being super clever at combing my two loves, booze and Judy Blume, the Chelsea of yore was way funnier in 10 second clips on other shows.
I’ve seen her around for awhile now on different shows bringing the funny, but since Chelsea Lately, she’s been getting a lot of press. I was reading one such article the other day when I saw something that made me stop. Collaborate and listen. According to various sources, Chelsea claims to be 34 years old. 34. 1975. I don’t think that age really defines a persons, something that I keep saying more and more the older that I get. But 34? Come the fuck on! That mean, that's younger than me! I don’t think so. I think that girlfriend got some Botox and some good lighting and shaved about 8 years off her birth certificate. I get that Hollywood can be rough and ages can be tweaked a little, but let’s stay in the ball park here. Every time I watch her show, I look at her and think, 34? Yeah right! It’s like watching The Real Housewives of… and seeing those women that are supposedly way younger than me, too. I don’t know if it’s because I’m not slathered in makeup, or maybe I’m just highly delusional, or maybe being poor is good for the complexion.

But bottom line, Chelsea Handler ain’t 34. Now, pass the Vodka.

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PANDORA'S BOX

Thanks to a friend, I've recently discovered Pandora. It’s become my new best friend/worst enemy at work. The theory behind Pandora is fabulous. You create your own radio station based on the artists you like, then sit back and let Pandora do the rest. Ideally, this is where Pandora plays the bands you like and throws in those that are similar in some way or another. It’s been great as something for me to listen to and fight with at my desk during the day. Well, besides my co-workers.

When you first start, you make your list and Pandora kicks in her two cents. Eventually you wind up adding music, branching out more and more which causes Pandora to do the same, forever expanding and growing into an infinitesimal musical “genome project." As each song rolls by, it has a nifty feature with a thumbs up or thumbs down icon. You click these to let Pandora know that you liked the song and/or artist and play it again Sam, or not so much. I even got a nice note the first time I clicked the thumbs down that said, "sorry about that, we'll never play that song on this station again." How nice, Pandora. You're nothing like your namesake that unleashed many evils on mankind.

Like the beginning of so many relationships, these early types of thumbs up and thumbs down are so gentle. I would see some songs and say to myself, "aww you know, I don't really like Mazzy Star, but it's not that bad. I'll let it slide." It's kind of like how when you first start dating someone and their idiosyncrasies are so cute. "He really loves music, that is so cool." But after a few years of moving four megatons of records and CD's you find yourself screaming, "if you fucking buy one more album, I swear to God I will find a way to shove it up your ass." Thumbs down, thumbs down! As I began to be a little more aggressive with my thumbs down I soon learned, as the major motion picture Hellraiser depicts, you do not control Pandora’s Box, it controls you, be-otch.

In the beginning of my Pandora experience, I sort of had this mental picture of Pandora as a person. I envisioned her as Alice Ghostly on Bewitched. Sort of sitting at a huge switchboard with the old-fashioned headphones on trying to figure out what everyone wanted to listen to. You know, flustered and spacey and kind of always fucking things up? The only problem was that Alice Ghostly wasn't Pandora on Bewitched, she was Esmeralda and there wasn’t even a Pandora there was an Endora and she was Samantha’s Mother and she was a bitch. But this Pandora is a bitch, too. Except that there wasn't a Pandora, but you get my point.

I will admit, I didn’t make things easy for poor Pandora. I have a wide-ranging taste in music. I can go from The Bee-Gees to The Hives back to Nina Simone (don't you judge me), so I think that it’s pretty hard to come up with a standard song list. However, when I put the Isley Brothers on my play list and I’m now fending off Tony!Toni!Tone!, you and me got some problems. Out of nowhere, bands that I would never, ever listen to were popping up all over the place. Then there were the artists that I would have listened to, but it was like Pandora was limiting songs to their Greatest Shittiest Hits.

I caught myself clicking thumbs down more and more each hour. Usually, when you click thumbs down, Pandora moves on to the next song. But after a day of unusually poor Pandora choices, I apparently clicked one too many times. I clicked and got no new song. I clicked again. Again. And again. And still Peter Cetera was screaming at me about something. Finally, I saw a message that said some gibber-jabber about music license and how only a certain number of songs per hour could be jumped. “I knew it!” I yelled to know one in particular.

After a few days pondering the new oh-not-so-cool development, I figured there had to be some way to get past all of these bands that I didn’t like that kept appearing on my play list. For the love of God, I never added Sheryl Crow, I never gave her the thumbs up! I gave her the thumbs down! Thumbs down! Why is she still playing? I questioned the functionality of a “don’t play this song button” if it didn't exclude the annoying artist that MADE the song I didn't want to hear. Why wasn't there a “don’t you dare ever play this goddamn person again” button? After taking the time (ugh) to search the site, I found out why they were playing Sheryl Crowe. I apparently like women singer songwriters that play the guitar. Hmmm. I think that told Pandora that I liked Liz Phair, OK and maybe Aimee Mann. But that doesn’t mean that I like Sheryl Crowe. Jesus, who's next Melissa Ethridge? Sarah Mclaughlin? Next thing I know, the entire Lilith Fair line up is going to be on this thing (I am old). Good news for all of those musicians that might feel slighted by my heavy-handed thumbs down! of late, apparently no matter how many times I click your sorry ass, you won’t go away. Just ask The Beatles. I love the Beatles. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But forgive me if don’t want to hear that upbeat shit at 8:30 in the a.m. Thumbs down!

In an age where radio stations seem quaint, I thought that the upside to all of this technology upheaval would be that music lovers might actually get to listen to what they wanted to. I guess that Esmeralda is a lot smarter than she seems. Or maybe she’s just in cahoots with Pinhead, I don’t know.

If you want to rock to some awesome music (well half the time anyway), check out my station. Again, I can't take credit, because Pandora makes most of the choices like the Bitch Goddess she is.

** Here is my little Pandora update. It seems as if Alice Ghostly has thrown in the towel and completely sold out to The Man. Two days ago I was in the middle of a "thumbs down" marathon, when a snotty little message popped up on my computer screen. It said, "you've used up your 40 allotted hours of Pandora a month. If you'd like to have access of for the rest of the month July just pay $.99." WTF? I got all pissed, because this development came out of nowhere. They didn't even hint to anything like this, just BLAM-O "you're cut off, now gimme your dollar!"
Well the one thing that Pandora doesn't know about me is that I don't take kindly to being mind-fucked. I have a couple of exes out there that could probably testify to that. So, guess what Pandora, if that is your real name, you aren't getting my dollar. Instead you get the Rockefeller, and you'll like it. I'm going back to my iTunes radio. Well, at least until next month.

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WAL-MART: LAND OF 1,000 SMILES

Is there a difference between Wal-Mart and Target? You-betcha.
Here is something that I’ve never seen at Target: A hoopty van with tinted windows containing a child of indeterminable age, but definitely too young to be left alone in a vehicle, screaming “Mommy” at the top of her lungs, pounding on the back window. Another thing that I’ve never seen at Target? A car packed with people, including a couple of toddlers and a baby in a car seat, pulling into a handicapped spot with every single adult in the car smoking. Except of course the kids, but give them a year or two.
Socioeconomics aside, I always have a completely different shopping experience at Target than I do at Wal-Mart. The major difference being at Target I hear phrases like "can I help you?" from the employees and "excuse me" from other customers. That being said, here is my favorite Wal-Mart experience of all time. I am pretty sure that it sums up all Wal-Mart experiences, but this one is a doosy.

They use to carry this supplement for dogs that really helped Rory with his hip (he's a Basset Hound and well, you know how hot-dog dogs can get with their tiny legs). Anyway, they seemed to be out, but before I left empty-handed I wanted to double check. I decided to ask an "associate," and I use that word loosely, for help. My husband shook his head at me and said "what are you doing? You're just going to waste your time and frustrate yourself." But, no I wanted to know for sure, because damn it, this was the only place that carried it.

I carried with me the cat version as a visual aid to illustrate my question. I made my approach to a kid a couple of isles over. "Excuse me," I said. "I am looking for this product (I held up my box of cat vitamins) except for dogs." I got a blank stare and a long pause. Finally, he said "that's for cats."

Mark just smiled and walked off, but I was determined to get through to Corky."Yes, I know. You guys carry the same product for dogs, but you're out. I was wondering if you could check and see if there is any in the back." He squinted at the box and again pronounced "but that's for cats."

I decided the next, best course of action was to ditch my visual aid and take him directly to the source. We walked back to the display of pet supplements and I again showed him that they had everything else, but would he mind checking to see if they had the one for dogs?

I swear to God, he looked at me, and for a moment I flashed to that scene in Fire in the Sky where the aliens stare blankly at D.B. Sweeney as they torture him. He gestured to the display case, pointed to the cat supplements in my hand and said "we have that one." I suppressed both a smile and my rage and through gritted teeth said, "yes, I know." I again repeated my request for a back stock search of the dog version.

Then, it came. The classic Wal-Mart response: "Well, that's not my department. But, I'll go and check for you." I was pretty sure that he said that to both shut me up and to distract me. By that point I really didn't care, but his tactic worked. I was stunned. As he walked off, confusion set in. Mark walked up to me and asked "where did he go?" when I dreamily replied, "he went to check for me." Mark looked off in the direction he'd left and said, "well that's weird." Weird, indeed.

As he walked back to us, he had a look of complete satisfaction on his face. I imagine it was the same one he wore the day he got his G.E.D. He was breathless, a little flushed and extremely proud of himself. His hands were noticeably empty of anything for dogs, but he did give me the box of cat vitamins back. "OK. I went back there. Like I said, this isn't my department, but I did look and I couldn't find anything."

I looked at him and looked at my husband, not really sure what to make of the situation. His expression totally didn't match the words coming out of his mouth so I was understandably perplexed. I kept waiting for the "Ta-Da!" and a box of dog vitamins to appear from behind his back. But it never happened. He just stood there looking at us, looking back at him. I think that time stood still.

I didn't want to beat a dead horse, but by this time it was a fucking grudge match. Me v. Dipshit Wal-Mart Employee, and he was winning. I said, "so you do not have any dog supplements?" He looked at me and said, "well, we may or may not have any." Then pointing at the box in my hand "I know we have this one. It's the one for cats."

At this point, Mark completely abandoned me to laugh in the next isle. I realized that the contest was over and the Dipshit had emerged victorious. I quietly bowed my head and thanked the young man, wishing him luck on life's long journey. Because, let's be honest, he's gonna need it.

By the way, we just switched to organic dog food and don't bother with the vitamins anymore. Also, I decided to just suck it up and pay a little more, drive a little further and go to Target. It's not Nordstrom's, but I don't feel like I've stepped into the Hillbilly Twilight Zone every time my front tires hit the parking lot.
I'm not saying all who shop at Wal-Mart are idiots, but all idiots shop at Wal-Mart.

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CAN'T SOMEONE ELSE DO IT?

Americans are stupid. Day by day, I watch with dismay as we become stupider (like that?). For an example, look no further than Rock of Love, or its latest incarnation, Daisy of Love (or any of VH1's programming for that matter). Apparently, the basic cable viewing public really likes to watch strippers try to find love. Or, strippers trying to find charm or strippers just trying to find the bar. We just really love strippers, OK?

But bad (did I say bad? I meant awesome) television aside, I do worry about the dumbing-down of America. I have a kid after all, and I'd like her to one day understand that just because Barbie can dance in a commercial doesn't mean she can drop it like it's hot when we get her home.

I know that there have already been countless books, articles and blogs written on this subject by people much smarter than myself. But when I, one of the proudest laziest Americans you will ever meet, sees a product so ridiculous that it causes me to actually exert energy to write about it, you know that we as a society have gone horribly, horribly astray.

For years I’ve seen it coming. It started innocently enough with Lunchables. Those wonderfully nitrate-laden lunch snacks that I enjoyed so much throughout high school. They were so much better than actually having to make a whole sandwich – I mean, come on! That's like, having to coordinate bread, condiments and lunch meat. Pffffsssst, what am I? A MENSA member?

Then came every college girl’s dream - tuna salad in a cup. Again, who needs to go through the rigmarole of assembling a whole sandwich when you can have a plastic cup of tuna with a wooden spoon, a la third grade ice cream? Not me! Bring on the awkward disposal of tuna water and relish packaging... "hey what stinks?"

Next came the pre-shredded lettuce. I thought, well that’s helpful! I can remember my Mother wasting her time tearing lettuce for salads. She often proclaimed any lettuce that had been chopped by a knife was inedible because it tasted like metal. As I held the package of pre-shredded goodness, I thought of the countless hours of my time I had wasted tearing lettuce, until the good folks at Dole gave me those precious seconds of my life back with their wonderful 'Shreds' products. No, thank you Mr. Dole.

Then it turned weird. Kids products that shouldn't have been made any easier, suddenly needed to be "bite sized" and "ready to eat." Frankly, according to many studies, the last thing that Jimmy needs when he gets home is an entire package of bite sized anythings. Some stuff is iffy, like yogurt packaged with granola. OK. That’s yummy and kinda helpful, I guess. I mean, if you if really want the granola and don’t want to go to all the trouble of putting some into a plastic bag.

These products simultaneously appeared with their less helpful and increasing lazy adult counterparts like individually packaged string cheese, pre-cut block cheese and cubed fruit - for when the cutting motion is too taxing on your wrist.

The other night while being lazy and watching TV, I saw a commercial that made me fear for ourselves as a species. No, it wasn’t the Lady Schick Quattro bush trimmer. It wasn’t even the cereal straws or the numerous pharmaceutical products that make your heart bleed so that your toenails can be the envy of all your friends (not even the one that has a side effect that includes increased gambling - what's up with that?). Nope, it was an advertisement for Coors Beer. Not that there’s anything wrong with throwing back Rocky Mountain's finest. But apparently, they are really going for that lucrative barely-functioning-IQ market. They now have a beer can that turns blue to let you know that it’s cold.
I will repeat that. They have a beer can that turns blue to let you know that it’s cold. I could be wrong. I’m no scientist, but I believe that’s what your sense of touch is for. Their slogan should be: Color coded beer - for when touching is just too much trouble. People, if we have lost so much of our animal instinct that we can’t even tell when something is cold we are in BIG trouble. BIG. TROUBLE. Screw global warming, that's too much for us to think about. We are done for.

All of this reminds me of a great episode of the Simpsons where Homer runs for Springfield Sanitation Commissioner on the platform of “Can’t Someone Else Do It?” That’s what I think that we’ve become. A nation of can’t someone else do it-ers. No wonder there’s no sense of personal responsibility anymore. Companies have quite literally taken it out of our hands as if we can’t be trusted to cut our own cheese or feel up our own beer. For Christssakes they put WARNINGS on commercials that have people jumping off bridges high on Mountain Dew. Do Not Attempt – well no shit. You mean if I drink a bunch of hillbilly soda I can’t really fly? Well then everything that I know is wrong and I really need to reexamine what I accept as my reality, because damn I really thought I could take that Chevy and pull a train with it. Like a mother fuckin’ rock, bitches.

Ironically, I’d like to point out that unlike Europe, America doesn’t yet have the cigarette packs with awesomely huge, honest warning labels on them that say things like: CIGARETTES KILL YOU, SMOKERS DIE YOUNGER and my favorite, SMOKING CAUSES A SLOW AND PAINFUL DEATH. So bully for the tobacco companies! Whew! Finally common sense and cooler heads prevail with a product that actually kills people. Wait..

6.30.2009
I take back everything that I said about Coors and their temperature coded beer cans. Apparently, we once again need a replacement for our sense of touch. I have an idea. Instead of a product that uses lights to tell you if something is hot or cold, you extend your arm, and put your fucking hand under the stream of water? There, I just saved you $40. You're welcome.

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