Hissy-Fit Rant and my Three Day Time Out

It was Saturday morning and I found myself at the Breakfast only Café. I hadn’t been there in a month but I go there often enough that the waitress knows what I want: no straw with my water, cream with my coffee, scrambled eggs, bacon, English muffin with one tub of orange marmalade. She probably remembers me because I tip three bucks on the $9.95 bill. Why 30%? Because older women are notoriously stereotyped as being bad tippers and if there is anything I don’t want in life, it’s to be stereotyped based on gender. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

I took the gunslingers’ table in the far corner of the room, my back to the wall, where I could see everyone because I’m a voyeur at heart. The annual 15K and 25K races took place in town earlier that morning and the restaurant was busy with people stopping on their way home from running, watching or cheering from the sidelines. I don’t get how and why people from all over the world come to run marathons. Where do they find the time and money for that? A woman at a near-by table was wearing a tee-shirt that read: “I make this shirt look good.” Really? She was coat hanger thin, probably ran to the restaurant from two counties over. I don’t wear message tee-shirts but if I did, I’d want one that said,” Bored women, please talk to me!” 

In this age of mass shootings I don’t understand why there aren’t fist fights over the gunslingers’ table. The people sitting just inside the door would be the first to die if a shooter came in and isn’t it a sad statement on our society that anyone has passing thoughts like this or that on the first day of school teachers have to talk about what to do if an active shooter comes in. How many more mass shootings has to take place before we all stand up and demand that our lawmakers get their noses out of the RNA’s underpants and do something meaningful? Kids shouldn’t have to decide between fight and flight. Heck, no one should! For starters, close the gun show background check loophole. It could be done in a day because back in February the House passed the Bipartisan Background Checks Act of 2019 but Mitch McConnell won’t let the Senate vote on it. It’s just sitting there, stonewalled like McConnell did with the Merrick Garland up or down vote on Obama’s pick for a Supreme Court Justice and we all know how that ended. Mitch needs to go so we can get someone in there who will let Congress work the way our Founding Fathers intended it to work!  Rant off, well maybe not off but it's put on the back burner.

Monday through Wednesday the body shop had my car tied up to repair the hit-and-run damage to my back bumper and adjacent parts. When I went in for the estimate the guy told me they would arrange for a rental car to meet me at the body shop but when I got there to drop off my car the young Chicky-Poo at the front desk said they hadn’t done it and claimed they never do that. She was about a minute and half older than the socks I was wearing so I stereotyped her as either being incompetent or she just got the job and ‘never’ in her book only goes back a few days. She ended up driving me to the car rental place and she turned out to be a nice kid with a baby still in diapers. But in the future I’ll be keeping notes of all my conversations with service people with names and dates because who would invent a detail like them arranging for a rental car to meet me if the guy hadn’t said it? If your answer is an elderly person on the edge of dementia, don’t say it out loud.

I left the car rental place, drove home, and parked the rental in the garage which fascinated the dog when he found a shiny brilliant blue Ford in the space where my generic gray Trax usually sits. Every time he had to go outside to pee he walked around the Ford, making sure it was still there. On the third day I drove back to the rental place, putting a grand total of 15 miles on the car in three days at the cost of $75 for the optional insurance which in hindsight was stupidest decision I've made in years. When the rental rep was explaining the option he was talking at Ferrari sports car speed and I was processing the information at horse and buggy speed. It only covered the $1,000 deductible left over from what my insurance company would have covered, should I have gotten in an accident with the rental. Yes, the one that sat in my garage for three days. Stupid! Stupid! Stupid! The actual rental fee was another $81 paid for by the insurance company. Damn hit and run driver that started this whole chain of events! The body work cost $991.66 and thankfully, the insurance company covered it all but they will probably find a way to up my premiums. Isn’t that how it works?

The month of May has been and will continue to be the Money Pit Month. If I was a drinking woman, I’d drown my sorrows about now. But I’m not so I think I’ll go to Starbucks instead. I’ve been wanting a S’Mores Frappuccino, which is back for the summer by popular demand. Hooray for small blessings!  ©

The quote is attributed to Gloria but I guess she didn't say it. The author is still unknown.

Fluffy Topics, LaughFest and the Nature of Humor

First a brief message from the elephant in the room before I move on to the "fluff" going on inside my head…rather, trying to go on inside my head. Fluff is running around up there looking for room to grow and spill out onto my computer screen. But after all that’s happened since the school shootings in Parkland, Florida it’s a real struggle. The elephant will get this and the next paragraph of rage and then I shall be a good little blogger and get off the soap box. Those of us who’ve been tuned into the national debate since 14 kids and 3 teachers lost their lives to a military-style assault rifle in the hands of a troubled teen don’t need to hear any more, and those who’ve been tuned out from what’s been going on since Valentine’s Day---Well, bless your heart, but I can’t do that. 

Okay. Rant on: I’m sick of the gun toting conspiracy theorists and alt-right “news” sources---even the president's son---spreading rumors that the students from Parkland are “crisis actors” and the shooting rampage itself is a false flag, meaning a staged play so the government can come take our guns away. Sorry, if you’re paranoia enough to believe that, then maybe you shouldn’t own guns! And certainly you shouldn’t own enough of them to hold off the Drug Cartel in your backyard! And I’m sick of people mocking, criticizing and dismissing those incredible kids who got baptized-by-fire into the realm of activism. It’s despicable! That’s just two of the side-car debates going on now along with the idea the president is pushing of arming our teachers. Jeez, what could possibility go wrong with that scenario? Rant off as soon as I say that lawmakers better get their balls back from the NRA and pass some sensible and meaningful gun control laws if they want to stay in office because the Never Again Movement is going to be a force to reckon with.

Fluff. What is it? I’m glad you asked. It’s the kind of topic bloggers search for---often in vain---when trying to write something that won’t offend anyone but won’t be as boring as brushing our teeth. Oh, we may say we’re writing for ourselves and it doesn’t matter if no one reads what we write but don’t believe it for a minute. Many of us bloggers live to find like-minded cyber friends or at least cyber friends who can engage in fair and respectful disagreements. We live to compare notes on what makes us laugh and cry, feel proud or insecure---what we think about as we navigate through our world. Fluff like that keeps the personal blogs community turning. By the way, if you’re a blogger never mix up the meaning of lifestyle blogs and personal blogs. I’ve made the mistake of using the terms interchangeable and that doesn’t fly in blog indexes. A personal blog is digital storytelling based on the blog author’s daily life and experiences. And lifestyle blogs are based on a person’s interests in a particular topic like the food, fashion, downsizing or whatever-floats-your-boat.

Raise your hand if you’re still reading. Good. A few of you are still following my rambling and as a reward I’ll tell you a joke: “Why do seagulls fly over the sea? Because if they flew over a bay, they would be bagels.” Our annual Gilda’s Club LaughFest starts soon so I’m getting ready to see two weeks’ worth of local media coverage. If I was a drive-downtown-after-dark kind of person I’d check out some of the 30 events spread out over the festival featuring various genres of comedy and performers. My heartthrob, Travor Noah, would be first on my list. Maria Bamford, Bert Kreisher, “Weird All” Yankovic and others whose names I’ve never heard will also be doing stand-up acts, improv, humor workshops and family friendly comedy. Even an exhibit of humorous portraits will be in town. 

My days of going to comedy clubs dwindled out after bell-bottoms went out of fashion. (I still miss bell-bottoms!) But won’t you agree that our humor also changes as we age? When we were kids we thought knock-knock jokes were the cat’s meow. I spent my entire childhood and teen years laughing for reasons I couldn’t explain. Then came the era of long-playing comedy records and sitting around on Saturday nights listening to records like Inside Shelley Berman and The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart. Jonathan Winters, Richard Pryor, The Smothers Brothers, Lenny Bruce, Redd Foxx and George Carlin---those were some of the most popular vinyls when comedy ​33 1⁄3 rpms were the in thing. I even remember the Bill Cosby record with him joking about slipping ‘Spanish Fly’ (an aphrodisiac) into women’s drinks. I remember thinking, why is that funny? Well, who’s laughing now, Bill?

Most humor gets dated or maybe it’s just that we get jaded as we age. The world we were born into is certainly not the same one we’ll be leaving behind one day. And for that reason maybe we don’t need to fear dementia as much as we need to embrace it. That’s a joke in case you couldn’t tell. Dark humor walks a fine line between laughter and tears. ©