Month: November 2012

  • Thanksgiving, Black Friday…….now I’m jolly!!

       

         IS IT OVER YET????

        Well, Wifey started preparing for the Thanksgiving feast last Saturday. Everyday she did some kind of project and I was kept busy running back and forth to the market like some kind of spousal android. The day before Thanksgiving, she and my daughter-in-law, cleaned and scrubbed the entire house as if there were going to be multiple surgeries. I was restricted to the use of one small bathroom with orders to self-assimilate all bowel movements until Friday.

        Out of town family started arriving Wednesday night and I was instructed to wear clean clothes and socks….I hate putting on airs. Anyway, we had a wonderful evening catching up on the family tree and the latest rotten fruits to fall. Later, once everyone was tucked in for the night, Wifey got to baking. Apple, cherry and pumpkin pies. The wondrous smells caused me to have a salivatory epiphany.

        As the rest of the clan assembled the next day, hugs and grimaces were exchanged and soon the moment to gather at the table was announced by Wifey. The family responded with the instinct of a hunting pack to a carcass. I stood and quietly prayed while making goofy faces at my youngest grandchild. I’m still catching grief over the Thanksgiving blessing, because I blessed the food and then thanked God for the NFL. All the same, I heard several whispered amen’s at the table. Food was quickly passed and tossed around the table and serving spoons and forks became fencing foils. Once everyone had maxed out their dinner plates with food…..the feast commenced and the table became as quiet as a hunting preserve. Soon there was an eruption of praises and accolades to Wifey’s culinary skills with numerous obligatory request for secret recipes and advice. Wifey waved it all off and whispered that it was really nothing. I stared at her in wonderment, like a deer onadarkenedturnpikefacing an oncoming Chevy Volt.

        The banquet was a great success, but a total disaster in the kitchen. The women folk, except for one who was allergic to soap, jumped in to help clean up and put away all the utensils and cookware. It will take us at least six months to find it all. In due time, all was done and the men all watched football in one room while in another, the women discussed Christmas ideas and the latest episode of The Real Housewives of Slutsville . After the ballgames, most of the crowd loaded up their doggy bags of food and waddled out the front door under a barrage of “be safe,” “take care,” and “sorry, I got gas.” Peace, at last. I finally used the bathroom and went to bed.

        Wifey started shopping at 5am this morning, “Black Friday,” and shopped for six hours. After playing kamikaze in the parking lots, jousting in traffic and fighting the crowds like ‘The Walking Dead ,’ she then came home and beat me up. It’s worth the beating as long as I don’t have to go shopping. Anyway….there are so many leftovers in the fridge that I still can’t find any of the Butterfingers I hid in the back after Halloween. If I eat one more turkey sandwich, I’m going to hurl giblets! Wifey now wants all the boxes of Christmas junk brought down from the attic this weekend. Maybe I’ll finally find my golf clubs or, at least, our lost cat from last Christmas.

        Wifey walked around the house later looking for a good location for the Christmas tree. She said she wants a ten footer this year and that Lowes has them for $129. She looks at me and asks where would be a good place for it. I just grin. She beats me up again. Fact is, I’m jolly for the holidays and all the rushing around and buying everybody nice expensive gifts and then decorating the entire house inside and out while I listen to holiday carols yammer nonstop. I will also love the quarts of jazzed eggnog that I will consume while I get friggin jolly…..happy holidays.

     

                                                                                                                                            Charlie

     

     

     

  •  

        Ugly People

     
    Okay…..let me do the DISCLAIMER first;


        All God’s children are beautiful. Ugly is no more than a state of mind and each of us, in our own unique way, are both beautiful and visually obscene. This blog is meant to pay homage to their affliction, bless their hearts, and not to ridicule it …….Charlie

        That said, let’s get on to ugly. You will nod your head, knowingly, to everything I’m about to say, but, in most cases, will not openly verbalize your own conclusions and observations concerning the Beauty Challenged of this world. We are so induced into not seeing the flaws of nature that, along with hugging trees, we freely hug rhino faced individuals that just 500 years ago would have been burned at the stake while handsome people watched and cheered!

        People can’t help being ugly, no more than they can help being liberals…..it’s a flaw in nature, and it’s not like the flu where a vaccine or a condom will prevent it. For centuries, we have relied on convents and monasteries to quarantine the mishaps of nature and alcohol has also been influential. Being ugly is not a crime, but being ugly in public should be. Why do you think 16 billion dollars a year is spent on makeup in this country alone? Plastic surgery accounts for 14 billion, but, that too often leads to the ’Jackson Syndrome’ of freak-ism. It’s no small wonder that Hollywood has a booming franchise of ‘zombie’ movies, considering the number of naturals walking around being auditioned, bless their hearts.

        Gross-Harmony.com brings thousands of appearance challenged people together to share photo-shopped pics and ambiguities about their lives. For a small fee, the site will help bring together couples for ’Bag Head’ parties and darkroom dinners. Once a year they sponsor a 2 day Halloween cruise and then, in December, they hold an event called the Elfin and Troll regalia . The site offers a number of services such as an on line beautician specializing in eyebrow grooming and bang extensions. Available also, is advice on tattoo removals, piecing recovery,  cold sore treatment and a 24 hour suicide hotline.

        One last comment on ugliosity. This has nothing to do with how much we love them. Two of my kids were born with this condition and we loved them as much as we loved the ones we kept. People are still people with hopes, dreams, careers and loves. It’s always been said, “It makes no difference how you look on the outside…..it’s how you look on the inside” ….what the hell does that mean!!!!

     

                                                                                                                             Charlie

     

                                         President of Gross-Harmony.com

     

           

     

     

              You didn’t really look up Gross-Harmony.com , did you?  Bless your hearts.

     

     

  • Deliver me from the DMV and cholera!!!

     

             THE DMV

      

     

        There are fundamentally two kinds of people on this giant spinning moss rock. There are those I like and those I don’t like. I can’t believe it took me all these decades to organize that state of mind. Now, it does pose a dilemma. Too many of those I don’t like invade my everyday space like creeping cholera. These are the cretins I encounter in traffic, the grocery store, my neighbor with the purple shutters and the car that camps out in front of me at the Wendy’s drive thru. But….it’s the assorted bureaucrats that occupy all the state and county offices that really crunch my huckleberries. Here they scurry behind their protective barriers like Neanderthals on mushrooms, while they maintain a vigilance of some large electronic clock as it silently ticks towards their next union break.

    Recently, I had to report to the DMV to update my old worn out driver’s license from Roman numerals to regular numbers. The DMV waiting room looked like there was an open audition for the Jerry Springer show. I obediently took a number and sat down next to a large woman with fish tattooed on her left leg. The large fish were swimming up her thigh and entering under her shorts as they migrated up the Amazon to spawn. I looked down at my ticket stub and saw that it was #85. The big digital sign on the wall said they were currently rescuing # 51! Crap ta mighty!

    Almost an hour and a half later, I was summoned. My back was now stiff and my butt ached as I waddled like Quasimodo up to the narrow peek-a-boo window.

    “Yes, I help you please?” said a tax paid employee with the name tag- Mrs. Sanchez.

    “My drivers license has expired.”

    “Okay. I give you new one. You give me old one please.”

    “I handed her my old laminated license that had been my wallet’s mate for the last eight years. She stared at it for a moment and then started pecking on her computer.

    “You have same address, yes?”

    “Yes. But, my weight has changed,” I added.

    “Oy, I see that, but is no longer put on license.” I didn’t like her snide comment. “You donate organ, yes?”

    “At my age, no one would take the chance,” I laughed. She gave me the kind of look you get when someone catches you wiping a booger on your car seat.

    “Sign here…..$25 please….you stand on X for picture and not talk.”  I was totally obedience, as I was getting euphorically high knowing I was almost finished and out the door. Ten minutes later, an angry little civil servant called my name and I was presented with my new shiny drivers license. I noticed that I had only one eye open when the picture was taken. Now I had to remember, if I was ever pulled over by the cops, that I needed to keep one eye closed.

                  Most of this is true, except for the made up parts……..Charlie