Tuna, Tab and a Twinkie

August 22, 2014Tonya Lanthron Leave a comment

Navin Johnson’s (Steve Martin’s character in the iconic film, The Jerk ) meal that his adopted mother served him on his birthday was a tuna sandwich wrapped in cellophane, a Tab and a Twinkie. Most of my favorite things are like that- simple, cheap and uncomplicated. I share Navin’s enthusiasm for Tab, and I like a good tuna melt from time to time, although I’ve not had a Twinkie in at least ten years.

I’d like to admit to complicated tastes, as in: oh, yeah, I sit around drinking vintage Cabernets and imported cheese while conversing about world history and literature with influential and erudite people. I study some rather obscure and esoteric subjects (have you seen my collection of 19th century postmortem pics, for instance) from time to time, but in social circles, I’m not that good of a performer. I’m not that pretentious. Since I am pathetically socially inept, and not at all well connected, my evenings are usually spent watching Jerry empty out the Natties, go from just a little drunk, to full-on fall-over shitfaced drunk, as he attempts to argue philosophy with the dogs. Jerry is not an eloquent conversationalist even when he’s stone cold sober. Alcohol does not enhance his verbal communication skills.

FYI: Natty does NOT make you an enchanting conversationalist. Ever.

Jerry isn’t the greatest company, but he is predictable at least. He tolerates my eccentricities, which is saying a lot. It’s easier that way, and I don’t have to worry about what to wear or whether or not I am avoiding eye contact again. To him, I’m just the tepid body that pays the cable bill and medical bills, buys food, and wanders around cleaning up the beer cans. He’s doing good to refrain from calling me Mildred and asking me about my diarrhea, but that’s OK. I’ve been married to him for 19 years and neither one of us has succeeded in killing each other or making good on threats made in the heat of anger to leave, so it must be all good.

I don’t know what to make of current events. Robin Williams committing suicide was just plain bizarre, although I can certainly attest to the truth that comedy is the flipside of tragedy. We shouldn’t really be surprised that comedians invariably suffer with depression and all the psychological baggage that goes along with it. Humor is a defense mechanism. Usually the funnier a person comes across, the more tragedy that person has endured. Most of the time I try to laugh to keep from crying- or to fill that awkward void when I just don’t have the words or when that proper, polished façade just doesn’t materialize when I need it to.

This dude must have had some pretty serious childhood trauma to try to rock the Daisy Dukes AND the crop top.

Perhaps it is better to elevate sarcasm to an art form than to take out one’s pain and hurt and anger in more destructive ways. I don’t want to hurt anyone, especially in the ways that I have been. It might be a bit mean-spirited to show pics of people who have made unfortunate fashion/life choices, but hey, you set yourself up for those. If I appeared in public looking like a crack ho, or morbidly obese and/or otherwise badly dressed, then someone posting my sorry ass pic online should be a wake up call, a sort of, “Get your shit together, bi-atch!” statement. I would be asking for it.

Now, going as a Twinkie for Halloween might actually be funny, but I don’t think that was this chick’s intent.

Sort of like a Twinkie, anyway.

It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like (Tacky) Christmas, and a License for Bad Behavior

November 29, 2013Tonya Lanthron Leave a comment

I knew my pink skeleton from Halloween could become a year-round decoration!

I adore tacky Christmas decorations. I like the nice ones too, but I can identify with “decorate with what you can find.” A discarded Bud Light bikini bimbo cardboard display from last summer’s beer promotion at the drive thru can be made festive, if that’s all you have. Some rednecks up in the west side of Marion did that one year and I’m still kicking myself in the ass for not having a camera handy to capture that moment.

Just hang some tinsel and beer cans off of her (like pasties) and you’re all set!

Dad absolutely loathed the holidays when we were growing up, and because we were poor, he waited until the last minute to begrudgingly allow us to put up anything. One year I stuffed a left over live Christmas tree from one of those tree lot sales after it had ended (on December 23rd, because there were no decorations in the house) in my ’72 Super Beetle and brought it home and set it up. Dad didn’t like it, but I think he let me go ahead and do it just because it was so much fun for him to watch me unload this nice, crooked, sappy, spiky tree out of the passenger’s seat of said Super Beetle in the middle of an ice storm. He has a sick sense of humor too. The tree ended up a bit less than five feet tall and resembled a Charlie Brown tree- but it was free.

Now I have an artificial tree, and it’s pink. Jerry is afraid that a real Christmas tree is a fire hazard (coming from Mr. Let’s-Drink-a-Fifth-of-Wild-Turkey-Then-Start-a-Fire-in-the-Fireplace-with-Gasoline) so I decided to humor him.

Tastefully tacky?

Jerry can be quite the asshole with absolutely no provocation or logical explanation at all, but any kind of holiday is a sort of license for bad behavior for him. If he can show his ass, get me upset, or otherwise make a Drama Queen Scene, that’s when he will do it. Every holiday. Especially Christmas. I’m better off to go to 12 Noon Christmas Eve service at church, and then get out of town for the next 36-48 hours. Guaranteed.

He wonders why on every holiday I beat feet and go somewhere else to wait it out. Holidays are the few times a year where going to my oldest sister’s actually is a more attractive option than staying home. This is even taking into consideration her obnoxious in-laws (and I thought mine were raised by wolves) and the fact that she beat the hell out of me every day for the first thirteen years of my life.

Yesterday (Thanksgiving) was no exception to his holiday angst. I figured if I was out of the house by 8 AM I would be OK. He had gotten really shitfaced Wednesday night so I figured he would still be sleeping good when I took off. Unfortunately he had set his alarm (?) for 6:30 (he doesn’t get up that early when he has to work) so I got the full “Where’s my breakfast?” and “What did you do with my pills/smokes/underwear/any other item that I normally never touch?” rant. I was in no mood for his little tirade, and I basically told him he could shove his smokes up his ass and eat shit for all I care.

56, going on 2.

I’m still waiting to see if he has the locks changed today and/or if he throws my shit out on the lawn. That wouldn’t surprise me, because Jerry is the poster child for conditional “love” if that’s what you call it. I stopped believing in the concept of romantic “love” many, many years ago. As long as I run and fetch and kiss his ass, he claims to “love” me. But the minute I assert any type of resistance to his constant shit-slinging, he goes on and on about how I don’t do anything for him, ya-da, ya-da, just like a brat child who doesn’t get his way. I put up with his shit mostly because I’m old, and for the sake of the dogs.

I don’t understand why this brat child in a geezer’s body, who would have absolutely no clue how to do more to maintain himself than the most basic of personal hygiene, wants to threaten me. That’s not very smart on his part. Before you tell me to get out, be careful what you wish for. You might just get it- and when I am done, I am done. Just ask my ex. Only this time I won’t show nearly as much mercy, and I will get a better attorney. You don’t want me to channel my inner ruthless bitch. Trust me on that.

I guess I just have to forgive stupid, because I can’t fix it.

Sometimes I wish I could just go from Halloween and skip to about May 1. I am not a terribly big fan of the holidays, mostly because of Jerry’s bad behavior. I know I need to sincerely examine why I put up with it because my tolerance of it defies logic. On one level I’m smarter than that, but on another level, I am letting my emotions govern my behavior. “Following my heart” and showing mercy have always gotten me into trouble.

I’ll see how he behaves tonight.

Scenic Central Ohio, Happy Halloween, and the Moochers’ Banquet

October 31, 2013Tonya Lanthron 3 Comments

Nothing says “high class” like an aspiring rug salesman fast asleep atop his wares…

At least his business associate stayed home today and the both of them weren’t sleeping in the rugs again.

The not-so-savory view across the road makes me almost wish they hadn’t closed the Swifty station, even though every time they were three cents a gallon cheaper than the stations down the road, the Somalians would line up for what seemed to be miles up and down Morse Road. I am averse to just about everything that blocks traffic, especially when all I’m trying to do is get out of the parking lot and get to Sally’s to get my hair dye.

Given my morbid sense of curiosity, I have to imagine what kind of exotic vermin are hiding out in those magic carpets- bed bugs, cockroaches, lice, or who knows what divers kinds of insect life that is not indigenous to the Midwest?

The native insect life is quite bad enough, thanks. The last thing we need here is an(other) infestation of some exotic and impossible to eradicate pest. It’s bad enough the Somalians and others hailing from cultures not accustomed to indoor plumbing, washing clothing regularly, and tending to daily hygiene brought in trillions of bed bugs.

I absolutely loathe unauthorized insect life- especially those that bite and/or spread disease.

As far as the unfortunate rug salesman, in his defense, at least the poor guy is trying to do something somewhat honest (providing that the rugs aren’t hot) rather than just collecting a welfare check and looting the grocery stores the entire first week of every month. Which reminds me, I’d better stop off at Costco and Target tonight and get scripts, coffee and dog food unless I want to fight off the unwashed masses tomorrow. Costco doesn’t take SNAP, (boy howdy how I wish Kroger’s and Speedway didn’t take it either, believe that) and you have to be a member, so that cuts down on the first-of-the-month free-for-most (but certainly NOT me) there, but you can’t buy everything at Costco. I don’t need to buy toilet paper 96 rolls at a time, for instance, and I don’t have anywhere to put 15 gallons of mustard.

It’s not going to sound very nice (since when do I worry about that) but there’s a lot in common between the government gimme crowd and trick-or-treaters.

For example, both government moochers and trick-or-treaters wear sometimes lame, sometimes colorful, but always interesting clothing and hair styles:

Trick or Treat- how cute!

I guess if you don’t have to worry about dress codes, anything goes!

I guess if you’re going to loot the grocery stores on my dime, thanks for at least giving me a good show.

Insight From the Empathy-Impaired, and an Ode to Caffeine

August 7, 2013Tonya Lanthron 1 Comment

I have feelings. Sort of. When I choose to acknowledge them.

I am not a warm and fuzzy individual. I never was, and probably never will be. If I live to be my great-grandmother’s age (she was 94 when she passed) I will probably end up like the old battle-ax that lived across the street from my parents’ house who was dead and decomposing for months before the water meter reader had the bad fortune of being downwind.

By that time it was high summer, and the coroner opined that she’d expired some time in February. Nobody missed her for that long. Thankfully she hated animals as much as she did humans, otherwise some little ankle biter (I couldn’t imagine this woman as a dog lover at all, but I really can’t imagine her having a real full size dog) would likely have developed a taste for human flesh.

Dogs are not gourmets, nor are they picky. (note: this incident of “dog eats humans” happened in the UK.) Mom had one dog (of the ankle biter persuasion) who would dine on soiled feminine hygiene items, and another that would eat entire pairs of underwear. Decomposing, rotten old fossil would probably be a step up from those culinary delights.

I think I just found my next Halloween costume.

Mom’s dog really did eat these things though. Another reason for my disdain of ankle biters.

Even considering my fear and loathing of most social interaction, for some bizarre reason, I end up being everyone’s twisted Ann Landers. Perhaps my carefully crafted outer façade is too good. I’m trying to blend in and navigate through the sea of humanity with all its complex nuances and petty flourishes, but I’m not asking to get pulled into the fray. Most of the time I just want to be left the hell alone.

An iron skillet is a multipurpose tool.

I considered the collection of iron skillets in the kitchen for a brief moment last night. Yes, they are excellent for making fried chicken and/or cornbread (ironically, two foods I no longer indulge in) but I have to admit I was not amused by Jerry’s drunken forays into my room at 9:30 and again at 11:00.

I’m generally out by 8:30 or 9PM. I don’t do late nights very well, especially when it’s a Tuesday night and I have to work the next day. I have no idea how he can party like a rock star during the week and not fall asleep (or worse) at work. I know I’m a long, long way from the days when I could party all night and go all day long too. 44 is a long way from 17- but 56 is even longer. I don’t know how he can remain vertical the next day, especially after both swilling Natty Lites and staying up until all hours of the night. I can’t do it even with coffee and Monster.

I figure if I were going to die from caffeine overload, it would have happened back in the day.

Ah, the good old days- when “nutrition” for me meant the Four Food Groups: nicotine, caffeine, sugar and grease. I gave up the cigs and generally avoid both sugar and grease whenever possible, but I don’t see me giving up the caffeine entirely. I’m one of those people who likes coffee “thick,” and I’m not referring to loading it up with extraneous crap. I like my coffee black and thick, almost like espresso. I like espresso too, come to think of it, with nothing in it but coffee.

No liquor. No sugar. No cream. Just coffee. Concentrated. Mmmmmm.

I could use a double shot right about now, come to think of it. I like iced coffee too, as long as the coffee is super strong and there’s nothing in it other than ice and coffee, unless I don’t have anywhere to go, then I don’t mind adding a couple of shots of Bailey’s. I don’t drink often, but I actually like the taste of Bailey’s and coffee- iced or hot.

A shot or two of this in some iced coffee would be a beautiful thing right now.

History is Written by the Winners, the Vexing Scourges of Cougardom, and Halloween=Diabetic Hell

October 28, 2010Tonya Lanthron Leave a comment

Yikes. Sometimes when I look in the mirror I see my mother. I am not saying Mom’s a bad person or anything- her heart is in the right place, but sometimes she can be scatterbrained. Maybe my surprise comes from my own presumption that I was going to be more flexible, more with it, more cosmopolitan, etc. than Mom was. When we were kids she seemed to be (and truly was) incredibly naive. Working in the public school system has done much to erode her naivete, especially now that she works in one of the poorest sections of Crack Town and she gets to see exactly why some people should be forbidden to breed and/or to have custody of children.

I have my own brand of naivete that comes from spending the past 20 years or thereabouts firmly entrenched in white middle class suburbia. I freely admit I have absolutely no idea (nor do I care) what songs are on the Top 40- I despise rap music and don’t care for country either, so my knowledge of popular music ends around 1985. I also really don’t give a rat’s ass about fashion other than it pisses me off that it’s hard to find shirts with frigging sleeves and I really hate the “hipster” style pants which obviously were not made for women who have a.) given birth, or b.) had abdominal surgeries, in which case I am disqualified from attempting to wear them on both counts. I want pants that go up to my waist, thank you. And I want shirts with sleeves to cover my meaty arms that are still meaty, although thanks to the shake weight thing, the flabby flaps underneath them have mostly been replaced with muscle. See, these things sound like Mom talking, as she would repeat the nuns’ admonitions (she went to an old school Catholic school ) about modest dress and all that. Mom learned about coverage from Catholic nuns who wore the full length nun habits:

Back in the day I had no problem with mini-skirts, fishnets, displaying cleavage, etc. My quest for modesty today springs more from a desire to be polite. There are things the rest of the world shouldn’t have to endure, namely the visions of an aging cougar’s thunder thighs, meaty arms or sagging boobs. I don’t think I am to the point of needing to don the nun’s habit, or even to resign myself to the muumuu, although the nun’s habit would save on hairspray. I hope if I get to this point though, that someone will put me out of their misery, or at least cover the important stuff up.

I am surprised that there is a TV commercial pawning a prescription cream to fight the scourge of female facial hair. It is a lesser known scourge of cougardom that post-menopausal women grow facial hair. Yeah, I mean like beards and mustaches, and I am not talking just about certain ethnic groups whose women are hairy from birth, but about women of northern European descent like myself. I’ve been using the face Nair for the past few years. Unlike leg hair, arm hair and unmentionable hair, shaving face hair just makes it grow back worse. Plucking is just too labor-intensive even though I have had to tenaciously fight the unibrow since my teens. It’s not just about the unibrow these days, although Mom was wrong about that. I pluck and pluck just as much as ever and my eyebrows do NOT “naturally thin out.” Two days of no plucking and The Unibrow Returns. With a vengeance. But now it’s the unibrow AND chin hair and upper lip hair and farking sideburns for heaven’s sake.

I can’t afford to pay $60 for a month’s worth of a script cream to keep face hair from growing in the first place, but I can pay $5 for a bottle of face Nair to burn it off every week or so. I so wish I could afford laser hair removal, and that I could get rid of leg, arm, pits & bits, unibrow, and face hair forever. I think Permanent Unwanted Hair Removal needs to be #1 on my Bucket List. The Bucket List is something I need to start putting together. Assuming that at 41 I am middle-aged, if I’m lucky I might have another 40 years to accomplish it.

I love Halloween. It’s one of my favorite holidays even though some people argue that Christians shouldn’t celebrate it. I don’t have a problem with it as long as nobody is sacrificing black cats or damaging property or anything. But for a diabetic, Halloween is difficult. I can’t have the candy. I used to love the candy. I hope Mom keeps Dad away from the candy.

As a kid I wasn’t diabetic and I could enjoy the candy cornucopia with impunity. KitKats, Snickers, Mounds, Milky Ways, Milk Duds, Smarties, Tootsie Pops, Sweet Tarts, Reeses, Hershey bars, I loved them all. Today I have to be satisfied with watching Steve-o and his buddies stuff their faces with chocolate, as I am wistfully chomping away on sugarless spearmint gum. Dammit. But I can still dress up.

ELYSIANHUNTER, ALWAYS INCITEFUL:

Because comedy is the flipside of tragedy

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