All That Really Matters…

November 15, 2019Tonya Lanthron Leave a comment

It’s that time of year again. Most of my life I have approached the holidays with a combination of dread and loathing. From my earliest memory I still can feel the disappointment and fear that comes from being a child in tough economic times – money, or more rightly the lack thereof- was guaranteed to get Mom and Dad at each other’s throats.

Christmas time was always a really turbulent time of the year. Dad, especially, always wanted to do the large and lavish holiday things but the money wasn’t there. So he would get bitter and depressed. If only he would have known that a quiet and frugal observance of the Incarnation and birth of Christ with sharing and love would have been so much better than just another series of money fights.

It was better to put up simple decorations and lights and to make homemade candy with Grandma than to dance around the tension at home.

I have gotten to the point where I can barely tolerate the retail bonanza that accompanies the holiday season. I love Advent and the religious observance of Christmas. I can even get into the decorations and baking, but no, I am not into buying tons of crap for people who (like me) do not need tons of crap. Meaningful, needful and useful gifts are one thing, especially for someone you know is in need, but simply procuring a piece of vapid kitsch to wrap up so you can say you gave someone a gift is just not my thing.

Maybe that sounds sort of Scroogish but there’s no need to get me anything either. I do not need any bath sets, Walmart knockoffs of colognes that give me migraines, or socks and granny panties. I don’t mind a good gag gift, a raunchy calendar or good theological books (that I would have to choose…) The only things I really want are intangible anyway.

And off to the intangibles. I really want that one thing I have found to be so elusive- to be loved, to belong, to be accepted the way I am even though I wasn’t made for this world.

That’s a lot to ask, and maybe even wrong to ask, but who know

Holiday Survival, Still Remaining Vertical, and Pragmatic as Usual

December 30, 2014Tonya Lanthron 1 Comment

Winter. Pretty, but it kinda sux. At least the holidays are almost over.

I survived.

I purposely avoided making any holiday commentary this year, because I’ve been there before. I’ve seen and photographed endless tacky Christmas light displays. I’ve already dished on the annoying relatives I’d rather avoid. I’ve said my peace regarding the big gropy gatherings where someone always thinks that 800º F is an acceptable room temperature, as I’m sweating to death in the corner, wishing I’d left hours ago. I smile and put on my best behavior when Jerry is channeling his inner asshole for the yuletide festivities, and as usual, on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day I make myself scarce while he gets blitzed and feels sorry for himself.

I should do this the next time Jerry passes out- so I can keep the mess confined to one place.

Jerry doesn’t interact well with my family, and I feel obligated to go hang out with them on holidays, so I choose the lesser of two evils. The house is positively untenable when Jerry’s ripped and on a rant, which is guaranteed during the holidays. My family are mostly loud and obnoxious people, and it’s generally not pleasant being surrounded by their noise and bickering, but they are mild compared to Jerry when he’s going on and on about how much ____ sucks or how I don’t “do enough” for him. Most of my family, with the exceptions of Steve-o and Dad, get on my nerves, but they drink a lot less than Jerry does. I really didn’t want to hang out and watch Jerry go the zoo on his first Christmas without both his mother and his best friend Bob. That’s an experience I was good to do without, and since I’m sure he doesn’t remember much beyond the first 12 pack, I see it (even though I loathe sports analogies) as no harm, no foul. Jerry’s lonely drunk-and-stupids remind me of that age old quandary: If a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it, was there a noise? If he’s drunk and stupid but I don’t have to hear it, then it didn’t happen, no?

The pink tree complete with the buzzard on the top will stay lit up in the living room until New Year’s, then I will put that stuff away for another year. Then I get to settle in for two months (or so) of Februarys- dark, dismal and blessedly (hopefully) quiet, until about the middle of March. I can only hope in the mid-to-late winter funk that somewhere I will find time to read and think and just be. I’ve been scattered in so many directions lately that I really need that ivory tower time in a bad way.

I need solitude, but I can never seem to get enough of it.

This year wasn’t as depressing as Christmases go. I actually had the resources to gift people in a reasonably acceptable manner, which is a big deal to me. I like to treat people well when I can and be generous if I can, and I am thankful for having the means to do so at least in a small way. I am not a wealthy woman by any stretch of the imagination, so nobody got anything really awesome from me, but if nothing else they got a little something useful.

So another year bites the dust. Another day (year) closer to death (if I may sort of paraphrase Roger Waters and Pink Floyd) and not too much to show for it. I can, however, take solace in the truth that I can’t take it with me. The inevitability of death isn’t as depressing knowing that I’m not leaving behind a mansion, pool boy, or a garage full of tasty performance cars. That attitude is pragmatism at work. All I can do is try to do the best I can today.

Norman Rockwell, We Ain’t, and a Most Pragmatic Christmas

December 26, 2013Tonya Lanthron Leave a comment

I actually thought that when the POMC’s male DNA contributor signed off his rights that I would be done with the snarky, vindictive antics that always seem to go down with “broken” families when children and holidays are involved. Yeah, right. I had no idea just how vindictive and snarky my granddaughter’s baby mama can get. Far be it from her that her child’s dad just might want to spend time with his daughter on Christmas too, eh?

Of course she can’t know his plans, or work with him for a compromise acceptable to both sides- if she turns off her phone and ignores all his calls and texts, right?

I’m trying really hard to avoid the very natural Mother of the POMC tendency to unsheathe the claws and protect the Precious Cub at all costs. After all, the POMC’s male DNA contributor was only good for his small contribution of biological material, and that’s the nicest thing I can say about the male DNA contributor. I don’t want to think that my granddaughter’s mother is being spiteful and vindictive without cause…but…Steve-o actually does care about his little girl and actually is involved in her life (unlike his male DNA contributor) so I figure, what the hell’s her problem? Lack of maturity, desire to get her own way, and the Opportunity to Make a Scene, are all things one does at age twelve to get attention, but when a 20 year old woman’s doing it, it just looks stupid and sad.

It’s a shame when they carry over into adulthood.

I can understand that mother’s desire to have one’s child all to herself. I can understand the instinct to protect one’s child from psychos (my ex in-laws, for example) or even from the indifference of the other parent -should the other parent be apathetic and simply consign the offspring to the caprice of said psycho in-laws, but Steve-o is anything but indifferent, and I might be wired a bit differently than most, but I’m not a psycho. Yet.

I think what was truly at work here was a vindictive, spoiled brat trying to inflict pain on someone who didn’t go along with her fantasy.

Guess what happens when you let your kid have everything he/she wants!

Now if I had known I would have spent most of Christmas Day between trying to calm down my son, traipsing in and out of Walgreen’s, Speedway and McDonald’s, and had I known Christmas dinner would have been a cheeseburger and McNuggets (thankfully they did not forget the hot mustard sauce or I probably would have lost what little bit of sanity I thought I had left,) I’d have stayed home with Tipsy McNumbnuts and saved the gasoline.

I normally don’t eat this kind of stuff but when it’s all there is other than Flamin’ Hot Cheetos and beef jerky, I guess- any port in a storm.

We were supposed to leave for my sister’s house at 12 noon. It was 3 PM before we were able to pick up the Precious One’s offspring and get going. Other than the insanely (stupid) late start, the day was lovely for the kids. Lots and lots of presents and toys and candy and food.

It was a more dismal picture for the adults. Mom somehow got it in her head that I and my illustrious siblings would just love, love, love these fugly scarves that some lady who lives next to the retirement home makes in her spare time. So we had to pretend that we were going to just adore the fugly scarf that (to me) looks like something Lucy mutilated, shredded, and then crapped out. But Mom doesn’t know any better. One year she got Jerry these:

With nice, slick vinyl soles!

Mom’s intentions are always good. She doesn’t see anything malicious or funny or even dimly inappropriate in stuff like this. So it’s best to just play along. Why hurt her feelings by telling her Jerry’s going to break his neck wandering around shitfaced wearing extra-slick soled slippers, or that if I wore that scarf in public people might think I started believing it fashionable to run around wearing trash bags and roadkill?

At least Mom doesn’t have any friends who know how to make those creepy doll-head faux fur Kleenex box holders. Grandma eventually got tired of making them and moved on to more sensible kitsch, such as crocheted afghans and toaster cozies.

She’d twerk- if she had a butt, that is.

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.

The World’s Still Here (Told You So) and the White Death Returneth

December 27, 2012Tonya Lanthron 1 Comment

The world obviously didn’t end on Friday, December 21, just like it didn’t end on May 11, 2011 or in 2000, or 1988 or 1986 or any of those other dates set by people who desperately look for meaning in the writing of the ancients and/or the scattered patterns of the skies.

It would be easier that way, maybe, but I don’t really want my life any more scheduled than it has to be. Routine is one thing, but scheduling all activities down to the minute is bullshit. I can imagine that might be part of the reason why today’s kids are so apeshit. I mean, most of them have to get up way early to go to the sitter before school, then spend all day at school with every second micromanaged, only to stay after school to play sport “A” and/or do activity “B” which is also micromanaged, and then come home to a late dinner and chores, fall asleep, and repeat the same noise the next day.

This would drive me apeshit as an adult, let alone as a freaking four year old! I really can’t schedule my whiz times.

There’s not much room for any quiet contemplation in that kind of rat race. I don’t respond to micromanagement well, and I don’t generally function well as a part of a group. What if I want to stare at the wall when everyone else is dancing about the room? I would be royally screwed if I would have to adhere to a day care schedule, let along to be a middle school or high school kid today. Granted, very few if any people share my need for copious quantities of solitude, but I’m sure that after awhile the lack of spontaneity and absence of breathing room would- given time- have to disturb even the most extroverted neurotypical.

It’s not that I’m so averse to having a schedule- as long as it’s mine and not one imposed upon me. It’s one thing if I set aside time for an activity that I’m interested in doing, and quite another if it’s something someone else schedules for me that I’d rather not be doing. There are also some things- like bodily functions- that just really don’t occur on a regular schedule, at least not for me. I take a lot of blood pressure meds, I like my coffee, and I don’t have much bladder capacity. I have to stay within reasonable proximity to a toilet.

I think that’s why holidays and so forth are so stressful for me- strange toilets. In all seriousness, there are people I want to see and spend time with, and others I’d really rather avoid. This Christmas I was pretty fortunate in that I spent most of the day with Steve-o (someone I did want to spend time with) and got to spend most of the day Sunday with my granddaughter (who I also wanted to spend time with) so I’m cool. I don’t need and I certainly don’t enjoy big formal parties and such.

All dressed up, (and this looks itchy to boot) with nowhere to go.

As far as the End of the World, I say let that be a surprise. There are some things I don’t think I really want to know about in advance.

Central Ohio is positioned in a sort of strange place in relation to weather fronts. It’s far enough south of the lake that we don’t get the “lake effect snow” that Cleveland and other cities too far north for human habitation experience. Columbus proper- or at least within the confines of I-270- sits in a bit of a valley. It rains a lot and it floods easily, but we get far less snow than the hinterlands up north. There’s a huge difference in snowfall just in going 15-20 miles further north. Most of the really wicked weather fronts end up either staying north or sort of blowing around us. So when forecasters say the White Death is coming to Central Ohio, I believe it when I see it. Far too often we’re supposed to get some huge-ass storm, the mere mention of which sets everyone off raiding the grocery stores on their quests for Velveeta cheese and Marlboros, and instead of White Death of the Apocalypse we get either a shitload of rain (that’s the default for Central Ohio anyway) or a piddly dusting of snow that doesn’t even warrant me putting on boots.

Redneck priorities- screw the milk and bread- we need smokes, and Velveeta cheese is good all by itself!

Yesterday we actually had a substantial snow- about 4″ or so within I-270. Despite the arrival of the White Death, I was quite able to get to work and get home in my nice little Hello Kitty Yaris. I think the traction control light came on once.

Maybe I’m jaded because the snow situation is very different where I come from, even though it’s only about 50 miles away. I remember one surprise storm up in the hinterlands all too well. My sister and I ended up pulling cars out of ditches with her ’68 VW Bug and a tow rope. She had snow tires on the back of it which came in handy. I also remember off-roading in snow-covered cornfields with VW Rabbits. They’re geared low and are fairly high off the ground, so they would go through a lot more than one would think by their size.

1983- when Reagan was president, the air was dirty but sex was clean, and Steve Perry wore Spandex. Damn, I should not have sold my ’83 GTI.

License to Annoy, I Hate the Holidays #584, and The Drippy Winter Funk

November 20, 2012Tonya Lanthron 2 Comments

Ok, so I am a brunette by virtue of hair dye. I’m also over 40. Cut me some slack.

Oh, yes, this brunette remembers way too much, especially in regard to others’ drunk and stupid antics. Jerry is attempting to stay sober so he can get good and liquored up for the OSU/Michigan game Saturday. Joy and rapture. The game is at noon, which means I can forget my Saturday morning cougar nap. Jerry will be raring to go by 8AM if not earlier. I wish he had the same enthusiasm for waking up on work days. I don’t care for football on a good day, but dealing with Jerry when the beer drinking begins at noon (or earlier) is going to be hell on wheels. I can just imagine dragging him in the car to go home after the game. It’s almost enough to make me wish I could drink to forget. Right now I’m not in a particularly social mood either and I’m sure I will be even less inclined toward interacting with other humans after dealing with my relatives on Thursday.

No, I won’t have to eat this. But in the end, I don’t know if eating humble pie is worth a high class meal. I’d rather be home alone eating White Castles, truth be told.

Maybe I shouldn’t be so despondent. I do have a family. I get along with my parents for the most part and am at least on speaking terms with my sisters. But these get togethers serve to sort of rub my failure in my face. I’ve never really done anything worthwhile other than somehow manage not to either starve to death or become a victim of a spree killer, and being around my sisters only underscores the point.

I know it’s been a long time, but a tortured childhood is a gift that keeps on giving!

Steve-o has managed to thoroughly piss off my granddaughter’s mother- so much so that I would be pleasantly surprised if I will be able to have any interaction with my granddaughter again. He’s actually at the point of wanting to do what the male contributor of his DNA did- signing off his parental rights- which will in effect make me a stranger on the street. Yeah, I know, the whole biz with relationships and so forth- and I am a cynical one. I have to admit I pretty much anticipated this, though I am thoroughly disgusted with the POMC and the way he’s handling things. It breaks my heart. When it comes to kids in Ohio courts fathers have no rights except to pay up. I’m pissed at him- because I warned him not to be such a dick to her- but I also understand the futility of him trying to maintain any kind of meaningful relationship with his daughter when her mother won’t speak to or deal with him for whatever reason. The courts always side with mothers in this state, unless they’re crack heads or serial killers and sometimes even then. She is a good mother, and her relationship to Steve-o or to any of the rest of the family is not an issue there. If she doesn’t want him or any of us around her kid, she can and will get her way.

This is reason enough for me to avoid the forced family togetherness this week. I’m pissed at my own son, won’t get to see my granddaughter, and have to deal with my parents and my two sisters. Damn, I wish I could have a nice, stiff drink. Or twelve.

I’m ~~almost~~ considering feigning communicable illness to avoid the compulsory Thanksgiving roadtrip to my sister’s house, where I will have my poverty, marriage to a drunken redneck, and my painful lack of any sort of meaningful accomplishments rubbed in my face yet again. Hello, punchbowl! The turd has arrived! That’s how I feel when I go to her house, and I have to drive 100 miles to do it. Me in my Goodwill and Target discount rack clothes, driving a Toyota Yaris, showing up about as welcome as Cousin Eddy (remember Christmas Vacation) in this suburban wonderland of palatial homes and BMWs. It’s depressing. I don’t know why I even bother showing up, because I know my sisters are ashamed of me anyway. I give them something to laugh at, or perhaps my saga serves as a cautionary tale for their offspring. Even so, I don’t really think either one of them would give two shits in a baggie whether I showed up or not- except that, for whatever it’s worth, I do bring homemade pies.

I may be poor and not good for much, but I can cook.

There is a bright spot. I have to work on Friday. So I have a good excuse to beat feet quickly after dinner and not stay overnight at my sister’s. Then I’d end up having to go through the hell of Black Friday shopping with the two of them and my Mom. I think I’d rather slit my wrists with a rusty razor blade and slowly die of exsanguination. The rusty razor blade would afford a far more pleasant death than traipsing through Nordstrom’s (there’s a place where I am definitely the turd in the punchbowl) while my sister runs around flashing her plastic and Mom’s gawking at all sorts of fugly high dollar kitsch she can’t afford.

I like mustard too, but NOBODY needs this!

I can’t get into the holidays. I wish I could- but I have no money and no time to do any of the things that would make the holidays fun. I thought I would at least be able to enjoy some time with my granddaughter, but I highly doubt that will happen either, thanks to my son and his abysmal relationship skills.

If I could avoid my entire family and all the holiday crud and come out sometime in March or April that would be OK with me. But, alas, the drippy winter funk begins. I know I have to deal. Oh, and I have to remember to go to Target and get my scripts. I don’t want to run out of Prozac anytime soon.

I’ll be armed with the camera for both my Thanksgiving Dinner in the Punchbowl and the OSU/Michigan Beer Drinking and Football Outing. Comedy is the flipside of tragedy, and I’m going to be trolling for comedy this week for sure. If I can get past the tears, that is.

Here we go again!

Tacky Christmas Begins at Home, Leave Me Alone, Dammit, and Holiday Angst

December 23, 2011Tonya Lanthron Leave a comment

I said I was going to put it up and I did. What a delightully tacky pink tree, complete with all the Hello Kitty ornaments and so forth that I could scrounge. I know Jerry hates it but (unlike his normal whiny self) he’s not really making a point to protest, even though it is in the picture window where God and everyone can see it lit up from the road. I have been so unfailingly, maddeningly busy that it’s been an effort to keep up just on survival things like eating, bathing and personal landscaping. I am surprised I did this much decorating. It’s sad because I enjoy Christmas for the most part, and this year I am not dead broke like I normally am this time of year. The trade off is that I don’t have time to do anything extra, so whoever doesn’t enjoy their check and bag of little goodies can go blow.

I think the most frustrating part of the holidays is dealing with crowds. I detest shopping and traipsing about amongst the unwashed hordes anyway, but from about Halloween to January 15th or so, it’s like perennial Welfare Day at the grocery in every store you have to go in.

Then the stores compound the problem by having limited time specials. The Kroger Marketplace ran an interesting special where you got points to buy non-grocery merchandise based on your spending, which was cool, except that the entire Central Ohio area had exactly three days to redeem their points. Those three days (Dec. 1,2,3) would normally have been “avoid the grocery at all costs” for someone like me already, because the 1st being a Friday AND Welfare Day means the place is going to be a farking zoo. But my greed got the best of me- since they owed me $90 worth of non-grocery merchandise and I wasn’t going to pass that up- and I ended up getting folded, spindled and mutilated all the way through the Kroger store to get a vacuum cleaner. Granted, it was a free vacuum cleaner, and the way I burn through them because of the dogs, I wasn’t going to pass up the opportunity despite my claustrophobia and borderline agoraphobia. I just don’t understand why on God’s green earth that a store would run a limited time promotion on days when they are already going to be insanely busy to begin with. Why not do something like that at the end of February when nobody wants to go anywhere or do anything and the stores are pretty much desolate?

If it were up to me Christmas would be in August. Nothing else happens in August other than it’s bloody hot, but there’s a lot more daylight available for all that traipsing about in the stores. I don’t like wandering through miles of parking lots at night trying to seek out my car. It’s dark and there is usually at least one form of precipitation going on too which makes the whole process all the more miserable.

I am delighted that relatives generally don’t come to stay with us. Jerry alone is like cleaning up after a horde of hogs. Being invaded by house guests at this point in my life would drive me positively apeshit. I don’t mind going to other people’s houses for holiday functions, etc. because I can leave when I’ve had enough. It’s harder to throw people out when you’ve had enough of them, and truth be told most people wear on my patience very quickly. The good thing is, not too many people want to stay in a house with three large dogs, especially when two of the dogs only like a very select few people. Sheena pretty much likes anyone with a pulse who will pay attention to her, including kids. Clara’s approved list is pretty short. Lilo’s is even shorter. All the dogs love Steve-o and Hannah, and Bob and Debbie, but beyond that, there aren’t many people who can come in the house unsupervised. I like it that way.

It sounds pathetic to most, but I would genuinely enjoy a few silent sanity days to myself. If I could do the ivory tower get away for awhile I would- three or four days of silence and contemplation would be a dream, but it’s probably not happening anytime soon. I’ve not even had a chance to start on the Stephen King novel I’ve had for a month now.

Jerry has taken it on himself to get into the zombie movie genre. I’ve always enjoyed the classic ’80’s slashers but the only zombie movie I really got into was Shaun of the Dead. Go figure, as it’s British humor. I get to see enough real life zombies every time I have to fight my way through the grocery store at the beginning of the month.

Go zombies. I saw this one in the grocery store parking lot on an old Crown Vic:

A Nouveau Body Hair Removal Solution, Overalls Wardrobe Malfunction, and Snitty Wankers

December 8, 2010Tonya Lanthron Leave a comment

Well, well. I guess I shouldn’t combine my loathing of superfluous body hair, intimate knowledge of what flashpoint fires do to hair, and something I saw on an episode of Dirty Jobs. Maybe with a bit of modification to the cow torch pictured here I can burn it off. I’d have never believed that cow udders grew hair, let alone that dairy farmers remove said unwanted udder hair with a freaking propane torch until I saw that episode of Dirty Jobs. Why didn’t I think about the torching option earlier to remove my own superfluous and unattractive body hair? I know torching is effective not only from the carburetor adjusting incident (my eyebrows were completely gone for almost three days, which is a feat right there) but also from Jerry’s drunken fun adventure with Wild Turkey, gasoline and the fireplace. Anyway, I think the only thing keeping me from the torching option is a natural fear of open flame, but it does work on the cows. Maybe someone could modify the torch to a tiny butane flame (similar to a lighter) you could torch at least the unibrow and perhaps other unsightly hair on the facial area with. Just a thought.

Oh, and it’s probably not a good idea to flame clip around your cat either.

I am wondering about Jerry again this morning. Here in beautiful Central Ohio winter has descended upon us with a ferocity we seldom see this early in December. It was 13 degrees (yes, I’m American, so it’s Fahrenheit- I’m only good with metric measurements as they pertain to nuts and bolts and things that are installed on cars) this morning which is way too bloody cold even for me. My hands freeze and crack and bleed when it’s that cold even when I wear gloves outside. I have plenty of Aquaphor but I’m just not that anxious to get back to slathering it on and wearing my white cotton gloves all night. Anyway it is apparently not a good idea to try to put on your Carhartts you bought last July at a garage sale when you’re “Weekend at Bernie’s” shitfaced at 11PM. I think he just doesn’t have the dexterity in his hands and/or the ability to stay still long enough to fasten the straps that hold the bib up. I know he doesn’t have this ability when drunk. Perhaps if he tries to don the overalls while sober it might work better for him. I don’t think they are missing any pieces but I will double check them tonight. I am not going to dress a grown man. He will have to get by with long johns and a parka if he can’t figure the Carhartts out. I can’t seem to get the scene from “A Christmas Story” out of my mind. Every time I picture Jerry trying to get those Carhartts on I see Ralphie in the snow suit, unable to put his arms down. It’s cute when a seven or eight year old kid is trapped in a snow suit, but downright pathetic to envision a 53 year old man being held hostage by a snow suit. If it’s that damned cold, stay inside. Whatever you wanted to do outside can wait. Until it warms up. Sometime in May.

I am not his mother and I am NOT dressing him.

Today has brought its share of snitty wankers. I wonder if it’s the cold or just the overall depressing holiday season. You go into a store and of course everyone is in there and they are in no hurry. As Murphy’s Law would have it the one thing I need to purchase is behind the two old biddies yakking it up about their hemorrhoids and cold sores, I am already running behind, and when I finally retrieve the item I need and make my way to the line I get the “team member trainee.” Take it from experience, anyplace that calls their employees anything other than employees- “associates,” “team members,” “support staff,” etc. is a shitty place to work for. Avoid working for these places like the plague if you can. It’s the same logic behind calling a turd “fecal matter.” “Fecal matter” sounds more important and polite than “lump of shit,” but in the end it’s still going to be treated like a lump of shit. Anyway, by the time I get through the line I’m running late and by then I’m feeling like Target should be paying me for training their help. Usually I am very satisfied with Target, but it’s the holidays and all the stores suck right now. I’m just glad the “team member trainee” spoke English as a first language. Had she been foreign on top of being new and still learning (not her fault- and to her credit she did a good job for it being her first day) I’d probably blown my volatile, misanthropic, Type A personality, stack.

I don’t see me living to get old. But then again, pissy, impatient old people were my age once.

There. Now I feel better.

ELYSIANHUNTER, ALWAYS INCITEFUL:

Because comedy is the flipside of tragedy

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