It Could Be That the Purpose of Your Life Is to Serve as a Warning to Others

How wonderful to be back in the blogosphere!  I’ve been gone too long (says no one who actually reads my blog!) and while I have considered writing lately, I’ve been sick so haven’t had the energy.  In reality, I’ve felt physically unwell AND sorry for myself, so this combined with trips to the hospital, doctor visits and a disrupted sleep cycle, well, whatever.  I finally reached out to my family and friends on Facebook asking for prayers, and let me remind you that GOD is AWESOME because He has heard and He has answered.

While I can’t profess to know the mind of GOD, He, like most of you, got sick of my whining and decided to show me that IT CAN ALWAYS BE WORSE.  Kind of like when your momma and daddy tell you “Keep that up, I’mma give you something to cry about”.  Today, at least, I am jolted out of my self pity and admit that there is someone waaaay worse off than me.

HLN Morning Express is my morning go-to news show.  This morning, they shared the story of Alabama teenager Darby Risner who, on finding the head of a Barney the Dinosaur costume, decided to put it on and prank her friends.  Darby, who could be described as ‘not much bigger than a minute’, put the costume Barney head on, and it promptly slid down over her head and shoulders, pinning her arms at the elbows, where it got stuck, trapping the hapless teen like some sort of goofy T rex with a giant head and useless, stumpy arms.  (So no push ups, playing poker, or picking up the check!)

Once her friends and all the parents realized that Darby was caught up in the raptor (I couldn’t resist!), they posted pictures on facebook and instagram, looking for help, I’m sure.  Then they called the fire department for help.  Said Darby’s momma, “We asked them not to turn on the sye-reens, but they said it’s protocol, so we had to throw her in the truck and drive there since that big-ass head wouldn’t fit in the Buick.”  Ok, That’s a lie, I don’t know if her momma that, and I’m sure the fire department just WANTED to use the sye-reens.  I mean, who wouldn’t?

Once at the fire department, fire fighters tried to control their laughter while also trying to remove the head.  According to New York Magazine (Oh Darby, you are FAMOUS!!!), “This also didn’t work, but the fireman would later describe her as ‘a greased pig.’ Which is what every teenage girl hopes to hear.”  Ok, not for nothing, but this DID happen in the South, so we know a lot about greased pigs.  Maybe that would be an insult in New York, but it’s not the worst thing you could call a Southerner.  Try calling us ‘rude’ or ‘inhospitable’.  That hurts!  Whatever, but I think this could really only happen in the South.  I doubt anyone at New York Magazine would get ‘a stoopid Bawnee mask’ stuck on their head, but below the Mason Dixon line, we wrestle pigs, get stuck in dinosaur heads, and all sorts of other stuff.  I know that today, I speak for my fellow Southerners in Florida when I say, ‘thank you, Alabama!”

Having been freed from what New York Magazine called “her Cretaceous Period prison”,
(Really, New York?  WTH?), Darby posed for pictures with friends and firefighters, she went on to say that she has also gotten stuck in a bus lavatory and a baby swing, and she hopes this hasn’t hurt her chances to become her school’s sports mascot.  Talk about ignoring the signs, but hey, think positive.  I know this incident will help Darby get ahead!

This Diet Could Only Have Come From the Stoned Age!

Today I read about a ‘new’ diet that I have to add to the list of stupid shit that we do in the name of skinniness.  It’s called The Paleo Diet.  Yes, Paleo as in cavemen and the Stone Age.  According to registered dietitian Chrissy Carroll, the basic precept of this plan is “based on the theory that our core genetic makeup hasn’t changed since the paleolithic era, and in that era people didn’t experience as much chronic disease.  And so comes the conclusion that the diet cavemen ate is best for preventing chronic disease…”

 

This is just wrong on SO many levels.  Our knowledge of cave dwellers, also known as Troglodytes, is based on theory and assumption.  In large part, the term refers to Neanderthal, and extinct (yep, dead and gone) species of man who lived 350,000 to 600,000 years ago.  Based on this, I have to rely on conjecture here.  Neanderthal lived in a world wherein he was required to hunt and kill his food.  There was no refrigeration so they probably had to cook and eat their catch pretty quickly, but that’s okay since there was also no birth control so they probably had many mouths to feed.  I also assume that herds of mammoths or other paleolithic animals didn’t come lumbering by on a set schedule, so there probably wasn’t much surplus food.  (Kind of like having teenagers at home.)  Finally, there was a real risk of dinner killing you first, either by trampling you to death or by slowly poisoning you.  (Kind of like when I cook.)

 

Face it, cavemen would have eaten more if food had been more readily available and was less dangerous to obtain.  The life expectancy of Neanderthal and his ilk was about 20 years.  And while I truly believe that the fast food and junk that we eat is more dangerous than a herd of hemorrhoidal Mastodons, I’m also convinced that the cavemen would not have willingly followed the Troglo-diet if given a choice.  (“Ooga booga….this mammoth would be divine with some rice pilaf and a nice Merlot!”)  And being that I have NO desire to hunt and kill my own food, nor do I ever have a craving for Paleolithic Buffalo Burgers, my core genetic makeup has indeed changed.  I’m assuming, again, that yours probably has, too.

 

I have to accept that in order to lose weight, I need to control portion size, get some exercise, and not criticize…myself or others.  I’m good with that.  We should enjoy all of the food groups and use food as fuel.  And when tempted by sweets and junk food, it’s okay to cave in every once in awhile! 

The Way to a Man’s Heart is Through the E.R.

My sense of humor is admittedly peculiar, but certain topics are off-limits as laughs go.  I don’t consider heart attacks to be at all funny, and feel truly bad for anyone who has suffered a heart attack or has lost a loved one to a heart ailment.  It’s sad that many people try to eat a balanced diet and exercise regularly but still suffer from heart disease.  It’s really sad that more of us don’t take better care of ourselves.  It’s really tragic when we go looking for trouble.

There’s a restaurant in Las Vegas called ‘The Heart Attack Grill.’  There used to be a Texas location that was closed for non-payment of rent, and I am guessing that the money went for insurance premiums and larger clothes.  At any rate, you can visit The Heart Attack Grill and order a Single, Double, Triple, or Quadruple Bypass Burger with an order of Flatliner Fries.  I’m not sure what they call it if you order a combo meal.  I call it Date With a Defibrillator.  What would one expect?  The point is that if you go to a place like the very aptly named Heart Attack Grill, you are looking for trouble and you’re going to find it.

Recently, a man went to the HAG for a ‘Triple Bypass Burger’, which consists of three half-pound beef patties, three slices of cheese, and 15 pieces of bacon.  Just this is around 6,000 calories!  Once you add Flatliner Fries and a Butterfat Shake and you’ve pretty much consumed all of your allowed Weight Watchers points for the year.  The waitresses dress like nurses and the owner calls himself Doctor.  (And people called Jack Kervorkian a criminal?!)

So our intrepid diner decided to stroll into the Heart Attack Grill for a bovine sized burger and a few pounds of lard fries.  Specifically, he ordered the triple bypass burger, which stands about a foot tall and weighs close to two pounds.  After finishing his lunch (enough to feed all of Rhode Island), one of the nurse waitresses told the ‘Doctor’ that the patron was ‘having the shakes and sweating’.  Of course the owner thought she meant he was having a butterfat milkshake, and that he was sweating from the incredible physical exertion it took to lift all of this calorie-laden crap to his mouth.  But no, alas.  The lunch customer was having a heart attack.  Health conscious onlookers and the morbidly curious thought it was part of the coronary contrivance that this restaurant is known to use in their macabre marketing, but it was the real deal.  As bystanders took pictures and video, the owner, ‘Doctor Jon’ said,  “Even with our own morbid sense of humor, we would never pull a stunt like that.”

His cardiovascular concern is really touching.  Coming from a man who makes his living on the slogan, ‘A Taste Worth Dying For’, his words ring as hollow as a balloon angioplasty on a Hasbro Baby Alive.  And it begs the question.  What, exactly, do the customers of this restaurant expect?  Let’s face it.  You know what to expect at International House of Pancakes, KFC, and the like.   I don’t go to The Waffle House and order Pasta Primavera.  I don’t go to Taco Bell for a burger and fries.  (Actually, I don’t go there at all.  The ground beef tastes weird.  It’s abstract meat, like bologna.)

So there is good news and bad news.  The good news is that the patron/patient has survived and is recovering.  The bad news is that this diner of death is still fully operational (ooh, scary thought!) and they’re still dishing up their killer cuisine.  And hopefully, there’s a lesson in here for all of us.  The occasional fast food is okay…..take heed if you should suddenly feel a Big Mac Attack.  And think a good thought for the sad, misguided souls who make their way into deadly diners like this one.  Bless their hearts!

 

 

What the World Needs is a Pill to Control Stupidity

If there exists, as my parents said, a special angel for drunks and dingbats, that angel is unbelievably busy this week.  I realize that everyone has opened mouth, inserted foot.  We’ve all said and done stupid things that we would take back in an instant if we could, making amends to those wounded by our misguided ignorance.  I admit that I’ve done it, too.  There have been times in my village when I have realized that yes, I’m the idiot.  But the realization and regret that come with this usually carry with them a valuable lesson, and a desire to be less fatuous the next time.

The pity is that many among us don’t possess a sense of concern about how their cruelty and derisive value judgments not only hurt others but serve to damage the speakers themselves.  And in the case of Rush Limbaugh, I would scarcely have thought it possible to see him in a worse light, but it has happened.  To say that I am shocked, dismayed, and disgusted, well, these words hardly do justice to how I feel about this cretinous, pompous ass.

Recently, a young law student testified before the House Democratic Steering and Policy committee.  She is a scholarship student at Georgetown University Law School, and her testimony described how the high cost of contraceptive care, because of lack of coverage through insurance, impacts many women.  In her statement, she spoke not only of contraceptives as birth control, but as needed treatment for women with serious gynecological health issues.  These issues include the treatment of polycystic ovarian syndrome, endometriosis, and amenorrhea. 

After providing her testimony to the all male panel, a literal firestorm was ignited when her remarks earned her the ire and disdain of Rush Limbaugh.  Rush decided to weigh in on his radio show by stating, “What does it say about the college co-ed…who goes before a congressional committee and essentially says that she must be paid to have sex — what does that make her? It makes her a slut, right? It makes her a prostitute.”

WHAT?! 

Then Rush the swine followed up with this pearl of wisdom.  “If we are going to pay for your contraceptives and thus pay for you to have sex, we want something. We want you to post the videos online so we can all watch.”

First, no, I don’t want to watch.  I find it worrisome and perverse that Rush, the misogynistic miscreant, would want to watch.  Second, this clueless, vitriol-spewing, moral mutant has no business attacking this young woman, or any woman.  He has a record of several failed marriages behind him, and I am guessing that his exes not only used birth control during their relationships with him, but considered douching with Drano once they came to their senses and the divorces were final.  This is the same wanna-be pundit condemned drugs and anyone using drugs, only to admit that he was hooked on pain killers and later, was arrested for doctor shopping.  Talk about a glass house for the stoned. 

This Georgetown student doesn’t owe anyone an explanation of her personal life or her actions behind closed doors.  The fact is that over two-thirds of the insurance carriers in the United States cover abortions, some of those include late-term abortions at 20 weeks or later.  Why should prevention be looked upon as such an abomination?  When my husband and I conceived our second child, we were delighted to be adding a loved and wanted baby to our family.  At 4 months, we lost our baby.  Because of the danger to me, my doctor explained to my husband that there was no chance that our baby would survive, but without emergency surgery, I would likely die.  After my surgery, my husband and I agreed with our doctor that my body needed a break, and that we should take preventive measures to ensure that I was healthy enough to attempt another pregnancy.  I guess in the eyes of Rush, that makes me a slut and a whore, since my health insurance covered my surgery and contraceptive care.  What a bunch of rubbish. 

I am sorry that this young woman, a student and private citizen, has been thrown into a political maelstrom, and has been simultaneously insulted and lionized.  I hope she knows that there are people who embrace her and support her.  As for Rush, he is the personification for the need to keep contraception legal.  And as far as my personal experiences and support for this issue make me a slut?  Well, Rush, there are millions of men in this world.  You’ll be the LAST to know!

I’m as Good as my Word, and That’s Bad!

When I was younger, my parents taught me about the importance of words.  I was taught to write thank you notes.  I learned that cursing will get your mouth washed out with soap (I’m partial to Dove).  Now that I’m older and working in a call center, I’m reminded to choose my words carefully.  Finally, I’m told to know my audience.  This last point makes me giggle.  In this day and age, with all of the technology I could ever need, I not only know my audience, I can almost replicate their DNA.

Of course I would never try to use technology for criminal purposes or cyber-stalking.  I’m actually very nice, and I’m also an idiot when it comes to applied science, computers, smart phones and the like.  I recently traded my obsolete flip phone for a Blackberry, which is described by PC Magazine as ‘still usable’ and channeled my inner techie and figured out how to upload pictures to Facebook.  I’m pretty proud of that, because a picture is worth a thousand words.  Ironically, that’s now my problem.

While I was surfing the web the way Gidget and Moondoggie surfed the waves at Malibu, I happened on an article about The Department of Homeland Security and Social Networking.  The incongruence of this was enough to make me read the article, and I almost fell out of my chair.  Homeland Security has compiled and published a list of ‘Government Key Words’ for monitoring social media.  In other words, ahem, Homeland Security will be monitoring sites Facebook, Twitter, and the five people who still use Myspace for words that they deem critical and potentially threatening to national security.  As word lists go, this one is strange at best.  To illustrate the absurdity of this, and share with you some of the offensive words that could earn you a spot on the terror watch list, I have written a brief anecdote, and the danger words are capitalized.

“I must have eaten some bad PORK, because I thought I had FOOD POISONING, or maybe a stomach FLU.  I developed a terrible ATTACK of GAS, so EXPLOSIVE in nature that I was afraid I would make my family SICK.  I felt ready to BURST, and knew that prolonged EXPOSURE could be TOXIC and HAZARDOUS to my family.  Rather than have them call the POLICE for HELP, I decided to take the INITIATIVE to drive to TARGET for some over the counter DRUGS, thinking MITIGATION and PREVENTION would AID in my RECOVERY.  I thought it a SMART RESPONSE to my SYMPTOMS.  Fortunately, I didn’t COLLAPSE, and with some ICE and ALCOHOL, I found some RELIEF, and the SHOOTING pains stopped.  I’m just glad I didn’t have to drive in SNOW.”

So I hope this WARNING has ENRICHED your lives in some way.  Going forward, we need to WATCH what we write on our social network sites, for we could easily be deemed a THREAT to GOVERNMENT AGENTS and AGENCIES (pick one.)  And while I am keeping my Facebook page, I am going to be very careful what I write.  And for HEALTH reasons, I am giving up EXERCISE.  When I STRAIN to do sit ups and wear work out clothes, it’s just a RIOT!!!!

I’m a Legend In My Own Mind!

I’m a Who’s Who!  Well, who knew?  

I certainly didn’t, but how delightful to be famous.  Well, that’s what I was told.  I’ve been nominated for inclusion into a ‘Who’s Who’ along with other noteworthy business dignitaries and community celebrities.  I received several emails telling me to drop everything and accept this incredible honor immediately, so I did just that.  I never knew that I was very important, so this seemed like a grand slam.  

Actually, a grand scam. 

I devoured the email, eagerly searching for the name of my champion.  I was going to send flowers, at least.  No need, since I wasn’t really nominated.  My “…information was obtained by our research committee after careful consideration of candidates using industry publications, trade show attendance lists, and corporate profiles on [social networking] sites….” 

Is that so? 

Still, my ego was still bloated enough to keep reading, until I found the part about the basic and enhanced lists.  The basic list was just that.  It was free and your name was included on a list in their publication.  To be on the enhanced list, which included your name, professional affiliations, and all the other qualities that made you a bigwig, you simply needed to complete the application and send $800.00 for a Platinum Membership.  In this economy, I’d have to commit robbery to get $800.00, and after that, why I’d be on several lists and quite possibly have my picture up in post offices across the nation!  And the taxpayers would pay the fees! 

At that point, my ego deflated faster than the Zimbabwean dollar on the foreign exchange reserve.  (Really, ten million ZWD will net you around four bucks in the US!!)  There was nothing particularly important about me.  I was still unique and special, just like everyone else.  I was also highly irritated.  These ‘whooligans’ really wanted $800.00 to put my name on a “yearly registry of global movers and shakers.”  That almost created enough moving and shaking to start an earthquake.  Seriously, Elvis Presley was ‘All Shook Up’ and Jerry Lee Lewis had a ‘Whole Lotta Shakin’ going on, and THEY got paid to be on lists, not the other way around.  

So remember that it’s nice to be important, but it’s more important to be nice.  And the work you do is worthwhile and meaningful, but don’t waste your hard earned money on a bunch of scammers who are playing on your sense of pride.  It’s great to be proud, but we’re all part of the crowd.  I’m going to save my money, listen to some Elvis, and print myself a certificate of achievement.  And if the folks at Who’s Who contact me ever again, I’ll offer ten million dollars.  Zimbabwean dollars, naturally.  

And that’s what’s what.

 

 

Remembrance Day 11/11/11

To every soldier standing tall,
on distant lands, where heroes fall
so far removed, the honored brave
lie exiled in a foreign grave,
who heard a higher call.

A spirit lost in serving all
is now a name writ on a wall
for some, a need to serve and save
in blood their names are signed.

Remains placed in a hallowed hall
each death still casts a bitter gall.
No vengeance do the fallen crave
for sacrifice they gladly gave;
but never solace from the pall
for those they left behind.

He’s Not Just Another Pretty Face….

This has been such a busy week for me and for the family. Jerry had a gallbladder attack recently and was found to have a gallstone, so he had to have surgery to remove the stone and his gallbladder. The whole process was particularly difficult for us as a family. It wasn’t so much that Jerry was in pain and had to have surgery, because, let’s face it, he wasn’t donating a kidney or anything so he healed up rather quickly. Rather, it was the fact that gallstones usually occur in women overweight and over forty, so I was rocked with feelings of both guilt and gratitude that it wasn’t me. Jerry came through like a champ, and even asked the doctor to let us keep the gallstone so that we could sell it on Ebay if it resembled a religious divine being or Elvis or someone else in high demand. Smart thinking since our social security money was already spent before we were born.
Jerry has been trying to rest and heal from surgery, so that has allowed me time to catch up on various activities, not the least of which is reading the news online. I enjoy perusing different news websites and learning about all of the nutty things that go on in the world. My interests are random and diverse, so I read about everything from freezing places to pleasing faces, which is how I got to this point in the first place.

With Jerry resting in a drug induced stupor, er, like a trooper, I took the opportunity to catch up on everything that I had missed in world events. A headline caught my eye, ‘Here’s Looking at You.’ My first thought was that some idiot was going to remake Casablanca so I clicked on the link, determined to devote my life to stopping such horror from taking place, but I was confronted by a different horror altogether. There, on the screen, was an ultrasound picture of a tumorous testicle, containing what appeared to be a human face in it! An not just any face, but a face that looked like a sinister mash up of Rodney Dangerfield, Marty Feldman, and Abe Lincoln. I’ll call it ‘Maybe Drinkin.’

I was so creeped out that not even drinking would help me. Nothing would make me unsee Jack in the sack, the ghoul in his jewel, the SMUT IN HIS NUT!!!!!! And as upsetting as the sight was for me, I am sure that the Planter’s Peanut guy is really having a hard time facing this!!!

This seems to have started in Canada when a patient sought medical advice for pain in his groin, specifically, in his, um, badoobies. So he agreed to an ultrasound to determine the cause of the misery, and the doctors were confronted with what they could only call ‘the face of testicular pain.’ One doctor was quoted as saying, ” It looked like a man screaming in pain, which I thought was hilarious, considering the clinical picture of the poor guy.” So, ignoring any moral implications (as I often do), Dr. Jack Kervorkian spent eight years in jail for trying to end the suffering of terminally ill patients, and this urologist is laughing at what appears to be a man screaming in pain in some poor guy’s ball bag?  Seriously? 

The urologist went on to say that he briefly considered that the face might be that of a religious figure or mythical deity, such as Min, the Egyptian god of male virility, and that name is the only thing in the doctor’s whole news, er, release, that is even remotely appropriate. Let’s face it, the poor patient is in pain. And I don’t mean like a paper cut or stubbed toe….he has pain in his cojones, and now he finds out that he’s toting around a tumorous face in his scrotum. And does he get the face of Brad Pitt or some other hottie? No, he gets the testicular equivalent of the one-eyed Jack and the medical James Bond reject, Dr. No He Dint!

After reading this gem of a story, I was actually relieved that Jerry’s gallbladder surgery turned up nothing more than a gallstone. No Sly and the Family Stone, no Stone Phillips, no Kid Rock. That’s good, works for us. And as for our Canadian friend, a hospital spokesperson said that he isn’t terribly interested in his rad nads. Still, he could try to say that it’s ‘Ball-y Idol’ and sell it on Ebay….

“Balls have got a face, he’s strangely out of place, Balls have got a face….”

Nah. That’s just nuts.

 

It’s the End of the World As We Know it….and I Feel Slightly Drunk….

“Don’t blame yourself. The Apocalypse wasn’t your fault. Actually, it was just as much your fault as it was anyone elses’s. Come to think of it, if you’re an American, it was probably about 80-90 percent more your fault than the average human. But don’t let that get you down. It wasn’t exclusively your fault. Unless you’re the president. Then it might be your fault. But you’ll have plenty of interns to tell you it wasn’t, so you’ll be fine.” Meghann Marco.

 Hello, blog followers. This will be our last exchange since the world is slated to end THIS EVENING AT 6:00 PM EST!!!! I have no delusions of Heavenly grandeur, which leads me to believe that you, my dear friends and loyal readers will, for the most part, be taken up to Heaven, leaving my sorry ass behind to go through 5 months of horrible tribulation. And thats fine, because after 15 years in call center customer service, 5 months doesn’t seem so bad.

I am hopeful that I will be one of those chosen to shuffle off this mortal coil, but I’m not holding my breath. The first indication that I wouldn’t be chosen came to me when I heard that the END IS NEAR, so I called my mortgage company to cancel the upcoming pre-scheduled payment. Of course they asked why I was canceling my payment. Screw you! The world is ending on May 21 at around 6pm…..that mortgage payment will buy Kendall Jackson ‘communion wine’ and a buttload of junk food. I’m going out fat, happy, and loaded.

 Click, dial tone, Boooooooooooooooooooooop.

 Hello? Hello?

 Little do they know that when I get called up to my great reward, they’ll have a devil of a time selling this house….no pun intended.

 So I’m here waiting for the end, and I even cleaned my house today. You might be asking why but my in-laws are coming to visit, albeit briefly, and I want things to look nice. Besides, whatever sinner buys the house, well, I want it to look nice. I haven’t said anything to Jenda. No use getting her upset. Besides, I can just hear how that conversation will go….

Jenda, Sweetie, the world is going to end tonight. God is calling all of his faithful home.

 “Oh jeepers, Mommy, you’re going to cook tonight, aren’t you?”

 So I am leaving her out of this. Of course earlier today, I was searching the internet to get information about the upcoming Rapture. I learned that we should feel a catclysmic earthquake at approximately 6:00 pm EST, so I added Jerry Lee Lewis’s ‘Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On’ to my rapture song list. Poor Jenda is already traumatized thinking that she has to eat my cooking tonight, but while doing my research, I came across a headline on one of the news sites….CNN or MSNBC or one of those….. “Church of the End Times Plans for the Future.”

WTF?????

What possible plans could you have for the future if you just KNOW you are one of the chosen few? I mean, in my case, if I am one of the select, my plans for the future entail seeing my Mother, who, GOD rest her soul, passed away in 1995. And I also plan to ask GOD why kids get cancer, and can we stop that, and why do people still treat Gays and Lesbians so badly, and why are hot-fudge Sundaes bad for you but oat bran is good…? If I get called to Heaven, I damn sure have an agenda. That being said, I probably won’t make it.

So I am here with my ‘communion wine’ and putting together my End Of The World (EOTW) playlist….here is what I have so far….

Europe- The Final Countdown

Skeeter Davis- End of the World

Elvis- Waiting for the End of the World

Iron Maiden- The Number of the Beast

The Doors- The End

Tom Waits- The Earth Died Screaming

Blondie- Rapture

and finally….Eric Carmen- All By Myself (sad but true!)

So I feel reasonably certain that I’ll still be here when all Hell breaks loose. If you need me to look after your children or look after any of you, for that matter, just let me know. I expect that I’ll be turning the lights off. Say your prayers, get right with your Higher Power, and know that I love you all verrrrrr……………………….

Captain Kirk is a Big Fat Liar!

For my friends who are fans of science fiction, this is in no way an attack on Star Trek or any other space themed show. Rather, it is a warning that not all things are what they seem, and sometimes our childhood heroes are full of it!

Having said that, I understand that all good things eventually come to an end. Designing Women went off the air. Crayola got rid of ‘maize’ and ‘raw umber.’ And apparently, all of the cast of ‘The Waltons’ are in some kind of witness protection program, because no one has seen any of them since 1981. But it’s nice to think back on these simpler days and the things and characters we held dear, because they represent, at least for me, a certain continuity and integrity that have stayed with me through the years. Which brings me to that ass-monkey, Captain Kirk.

Bearing in mind that everything has a beginning and an end, I can understand that James T. Kirk had to find another gig to pay the bills after he got booted off the Enterprise. I admired his stint on Rescue 911, really, not so much because of the positive impact the show had, but because he looked so uncomfortable so obviously encased in that full body girdle and I could identify with that. (Okay, I still can!) Of course, this show, too, ended, so Capt. Kirk, being a famewhore and food addict (I totally get that, too!) decided to take whatever job he could get. So he ended up with Pricelie, er, PriceliNe. And that is where the trouble really begins.

Captain Jerk now makes a living convincing Middle America that cheap hotel rooms are simply amazing. In fact, he encourages reasonably mild-mannered people to go online and show their asses anonymously to get cheap hotel rooms even more cheaply. It seems like a good thing, until you remember that you get what you pay for, and even our childhood television heroes will do what it takes to make a buck. Here is a case in point.

My father came to North Carolina recently to visit us and to take our daughter Jenda back to Florida for a visit. Since we already had a full house and he knew that Princess Jenda travels with more baggage than the Astors and Vanderbilts combined, he decided to venture into Kernersville and stay in a hotel for the night before driving back to Florida with Princess Jenda. My father can never be accused of being tech-savvy, but apparently he was feeling his oats, or he was smoking them, because he decided to book his hotel room on Priceline. The hotel that was recommended was rated five stars. Unfortunately, that must have been on a scale of 200.

Priceline suggested the 5 star rated Dudley Inn. After having seen it, I realize that the name was a misnomer, as it should actually be called Deadly Inn. I say having seen it, but that’s not entirely accurate. From the outside, it looks rather normal. It’s not the Trump Towers, but the outside is okay. So far, Captain Kirk is okay. Step inside and he moves from zeitgeist to shit list. See, when you walk into a hotel lobby and realize that all of the potted plants are fake, and THEY’RE dead, it dawns on you that there is a serious problem, and that creepy tingling up and down your spine is not the Vulcan Nerve Pinch. Which brings me back to my poor Dad.

He went to the front desk to check in and was told that they should have a room ready by now. Being that he had booked the room, he couldn’t understand why the room might not be ready, but he was still under the assumption that the hotel was a five star rated inn, so he went along with it, dead silk plants aside. What can I say, after a twelve hour drive, he was tired and decided that the lobby simply needed cleaning. So he paid for one night and got a key to a room on the third floor.

Naturally, there were no working elevators, so he schlepped upstairs with his overnight bag and opened the door. The first thing he noticed was the smell. Being a Viet Nam era veteran, he immediately recognized the smell of decomposing flesh. Now, Daddy doesn’t scare easily, but peering cautiously into the room, he saw unidentifiable stains on the carpet, so he backed out, went back downstairs, and asked for another room.

“What’s wrong with the one we gave you?”

Well, I think the last guy never checked out and rigor mortis is still setting in. What else do you have?

The night manager sent one of the desk clerks with Daddy to try another room. They went to another room that was occupied by a number of people that Daddy hoped were just here illegally. Then on to the third room. This one had a headboard that had fallen down from where it had once been nailed to the wall. They finally found a fourth room that had no towels. This wasn’t a huge problem since there was no running water and there was something growing all over the toilet that Daddy could only describe as MRSA on crack.

By this time, Daddy realized the sun was coming up and he decided that it would be better to just come on over, crash on the loveseat and deal with a house full of people rather than a motel full of as yet undiscovered dead bodies and unclassified diseases. He showed up on our doorstep at the butt-crack of dawn asking for a hot shower, a place to sleep, and massive doses of antibiotics. I was able to oblige on all counts, after putting him through a decontamination process similar to those at Chernobyl. After a few hours of sleep, he and Jenda got on the road. I loaded them up with Lysol spray and Clorox wipes, so I know they left all the public restrooms between North Carolina and Florida much cleaner than they found them, which isn’t saying much.

After a fun-filled vacation, wherein Jenda cleaned out Dad’s bank account, she came back home to us, and Dad decided to stay with us instead of taking his chances with another Bates Motel knock off. Of course my house isn’t nearly as nice as the Bates Motel, or as neat and clean, but that’s another story. The fact of the matter is that I would sooner believe Norman Bates than Captain Kirk. But Kirk gets away with it. And no wonder….

As Norman Bates once said, “I think [he] must have one of those faces you can’t help believing.”