How Low Can You Go?

The there’s only one reason a sane person would check in to a busy hospital’s emergency room.

They’re dying.

Pro tip: If you want to die in front of a doctor, plan to put death on hold for 4 or 5 hours. Emergency rooms don’t move quickly.

I knew I wasn’t dying but was in enough discomfort that it was starting to seem like a decent alternative.

Briefly, here’s what lead to this.

I’ve been in treatment for neck/throat cancer. Treating cancer in this area means radiation to the neck. Radiation to the neck means a very tender thoat. A tender throat means it hurts to eat solid food. Giving up solid food means a liquid diet.

An all-liquid diet is great for weight loss, but all liquids means no solids, and no solids means one day you’re gonna say, “Um, honey, would you please pick me up some Depends?”

Congratulate yourself, sir. You have just reached a new low in your life.

For even when you no longer need to depend on Depends, you can never pretend you didn’t once depend.

The end.

Wait, not quite.

Once seen in these, it can never be unseen.

This, by the way, is another ending. The end of romance as you knew it. Boom! Love life over.

Your man-card will NOT be recalled because your name is no longer even on the list.

Now, the end?

Nope. There’s more.

For about two weeks, things had not been right. Despite being on an all-liquid diet, somehow my system was grinding to a halt, and I knew it.

Air traffic control had been receiving warnings that planes were circling overhead with no place to land.

In riverboat terms, nothing could move because of a log jam on the river.

In automotive terms, traffic had come to a standstill because the exit was blocked.

It finally reached a point where I could no longer handle it alone, and that’s how I wound up in the emergency room.

I figured the doctor would give me the strongest drugs known to man, get me out of pain and send me home. Simple stuff.

Not how it happened.

The ER doctor examined me. Thoroughly examined me. COMPLETELY examined me. Rubber gloves involved.

Then announced, “You’re an enigma.”

Actually, he said, “You need an enema,” but this is my story, and I’m taking literary license.

You know what? I expected this would be the conclusion when I came in. This train had been derailed for a while, and I knew it would take dynamite to blow up the wreckage and clear the track.

So I was resigned to it. Let’s do this thing.

He called in a nurse to take over the dirty work. Of course.

While everyone knows the basics of this procedure, I must tell you I was really, really unprepared for what was ahead.

What I saw next can only be described as a 40-gallon water tank hanging from an IV pole and heading my way.

Apparently, the plan was to break up the logjam by creating floodwaters the likes that hadn’t been seen since Noah plucked animals from the earth two-by-two.

I don’t know just how big of a water balloon they thought they could make my butt but clearly there were great expectations.

“Might as well lose the hospital gown,” I was told. “It’ll only be in the way.”

Great. Now I knew exactly what it meant to be naked and afraid.

Here’s how it would work. I’d lie on a bed of absorbent pads taking on water until I couldn’t, hold it until I couldn’t, then grab the corners of the pad, holding them up like a diaper with no pins and dash to the bathroom.

When finished in the bathroom, I’d walk buck naked back to the bed, lie down on more absorbent pads and repeat the process. Over and over.

It went on for days. Or 15 minutes. It was awful.

This was humiliation on a level I had never dreamed. New lows in life? I was mining them by the minute.

Having lost almost 40 pounds in the last couple of months, my skin hangs on me like old drapes in a haunted house. And if I haven’t mentioned it, I was naked in front of a nurse.

And an enema was involved.

Got the picture?

Good. You’ve suffered enough.

The end. For real.

”I’m sorry you’re not feeling well, son. How long has it been since you had a good BM?”
-your grandma

seCond danCe With the Big C

“I’m afraid it’s cancer.”

Son of a bitch!

Sorry about the language. And actually that was not my first reaction.

My first reaction was tears, right there in my doctor’s office.

Cancer? Really?

That is not what I came in to hear.

I’m Allen Tibbetts. Does he not know that? Allen Tibbetts does not get cancer.

Never mind that I beat back colon cancer almost 30 years ago. That doesn’t count. I was younger and completely invincible.

Now, I’m mid-60s and heading into the final quarter, if I’m not already there. And regardless of whether I have cancer or not.

Will that make this fight different?

Hey, I’m Allen Tibbetts, damn it!

I’m that prize you find in your Cracker Jacks. Not really worth much but it makes you happy, right?

Many years ago, in a late night session, a friend asked, “What’s your perfect life?”

I told him my dream was to make a living just being me. In a perfect world, people would walk up to me and ask, “Hey, are you Allen Tibbetts?”

“Yes, I am,” I’d say. And they would just give me money.

Knowing I was making a career out of doing a goofy morning show on the radio, he got this screwy look on his face and asked, “Isn’t that pretty much what you’re doing now?”

I didn’t argue. It was close.

Life has pretty much been a box of Lucky Charms. Pink hearts, yellow moons, green clovers… a sugary cereal and maybe not all that good for you, but what’s not to love?

Now this.

Now, another round of chemo and radiation.

This time, the cancer is in my throat. My doctor touts a great success rate but has spoken of other possible outcomes. That ‘what if’ factor.

‘What if’ it doesn’t go according to plan?

One of those ‘what ifs’ is permanently losing my voice.

Side note: I sense a secret joy in my household over that one.

Shhh… he has cancer. But really, y’all. What if we never had to listen to him anymore? How bad would that be?

Fine. But y’all would miss me saying wise things. (My specialty, if you ask me.)

In my 30’s, I let cancer treatments get the best of me for a while.

I cried a lot over nothing and slept a bunch. Having never experienced depression, I didn’t recognize it then. But looking back, it seems pretty obvious.

My wife cried with me sometimes. I didn’t like making her cry. Makes me cry thinking about it.

As I healed, I came out of it quickly, but I want it to be different this time.

I have an idea of what the side effects will be, and I’m going to try and own it. Boss it around, if I can.

I have a plan. I’m exercising more and drinking better whiskey.

I’m also eating whatever I damn well want.

And apparently cussing a lot.

Cancer.

Son of a bitch!

More Tea, Sugar?

This story has taken 65 years and 3 days to come together.

Three days in which I heard or saw affirmation of my Southern upbringing, 65 years of knowing it’s real.

Lifted from a Kentucky friend’s Facebook post

My doctor’s PA calls me ‘baby.’

I love that.

She has kids and a husband and being probably 30 years younger than me, so I suspect she’s not after my rockin’ bod.

She’s just being a Southern woman. Kind and attentive.

Baby, darlin’, sugar… ain’t no man with Southern blood mind a little verbal affection from a woman tending to him, hon.

Add ‘hon’ to that list. It could be ‘honey’ but why use two syllables when you can get by with one?

Come to think of it, rewrite the whole list and let’s shorten baby and sugar to babe and sug. It’s probably spelled ‘shug.’ That would give it the same treatment we give the word ‘fridge’ when shortening ‘refrigerator.’ Completely change the spelling.

Darlin’ has yet to be successfully shortened.

Q: Does everyone in the South like being addressed by these terms of endearment?

A: No.

Why is that, you ask?

Explaining things like this is one of the reasons you subscribe to this blog. I know stuff. I’m a stuff knower.

This particular problem is genetic. Certain Southerners have a genetic disorder passed down from a parent or grandparent that once lived in one of the “I” countries:

Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Ohio, Missouri… the list gets long and includes New York and New Jersey despite the fact their names don’t contain that specific letter.

People in those countries are not always the friendliest.

Nebraska, by the way, is not an “I” country. I stopped in a little-town diner in Nebraska once and was immediately addressed as ‘sugar.’ That leads me to believe Nebraska was probably a Southern state at one time but was victimized by continental drift.

Just a guess.

But this brings us to my friend’s post pictured above. He lives in Kentucky, so why does he have to come back to his home state of Georgia to get the loving attention he desires from a friendly waitress?

Isn’t Kentucky in the South?

Again, you’ve come to the right source for an explanation.

Kentucky has it’s fine points. It’s beautiful, for one. And there’s Kentucky bourbon. But I’ve found that once you get north of Tennessee, calling yourself a Southern state and being a Southern state gets a little tricky.

In the case of Kentucky, specifically, it is bordered by three of the aforementioned “I” countries, so there’s no way it can escape being somewhat influenced by them.

The people in those countries are not evil, mind you, but generally tend to lack the warmth and charm to work in a proper Southern diner.

I’ve often wondered if Waffle House has a handbook. Their people are always so well-trained.

Or maybe they’ve simply hired servers smart enough to know… (sing it) you don’t have to call me darlin’, darlin’… but I’m gonna leave a bigger tip if you do.

It’s my own way of saying thanks, hon.

The Kentucky Playhouse Theatre Presents...

Driving through a little bitty town in Kentucky, we passed a place billing itself as the Pioneer Playhouse.

Without a lick of research into what actually happens there, my mind started writing a script for a show I imagined I might see at the Pioneer Playhouse and Campground.

Let’s begin with a local couple trying to entertain their neighbors on a warm Friday evening.

Most of the entire town is in attendance, having gotten their ice cream cones or popcorn and settled into their lawn chairs.

Now in order for this to have a chance to work, imagine Virgil and Joyce standing in front of their fellow Bluegrass townfolk, about to present this little skit they wrote the other night after a fine meal of chicken fried steak, pole beans and biscuits.

Virgil and Joyce are not great actors, but this ain’t Hollywood. They speak their lines in a memorized, staccato fashion. Every word is enunciated.

*lights down, spotlight on*

Virgil: Welcome to the Pioneer Playhouse. Tonight, we’re going to do a play called ‘Daniel Boone Comes Home Then Leaves Again.’ I’ll play the part of Daniel Boone. Joyce here will play the part of Rebecca. We hope you enjoy the show.

*curtain opens/light up*

Daniel: Hello, Rebecca. I’m home from killin’ b’ars. What’s for supper?

Rebecca: Unless you bought one of them bears home, I reckon it’s racoon. I caught one of them varmints in the chicken pen this morning.

Daniel: Mm-mm! I love me some stewed racoon, especially warshed down with some good ol’ stump water. Did you save that ‘coon skin? I need me a new hat.

Rebecca: I shore did, Dan’l. I was gonna make me a new potholder out of it, but you can take it.

Daniel: Did you save the tail?

Rebecca: I shore did. I used it to dust around the place today, but if’n you take it down to the crick and warsh it off, it’ll be a good as it was afore I took a hatchet to that ‘coon’s butt this morning.

Daniel: I think I’m a-gonna pin it to the front of my new hat. It can hang down and camouflage my face. That way, when I sneak up on a b’ar, I’ll look like a raccoon backin’ up on ‘im. Plus, it’ll keep my nose warm. Wha’d’ya think about that, Becca?

Rebecca: I think that’s just plain silly. When was the last time you saw a raccoon sneakin’ up on something with its hiney? Here’s what you orta do. Pin it to the back of your hat. That’ll look good! Why, in years to come, people might think back about how ole Dan’l looked with that ‘coon’s tail hangin’ down his back, and they might want to do it something like it, too. Maybe with a rat’s tail or something.

Daniel: That’s a mighty fine idea, Becca. You’re a good woman. Now, let’s git some shut-eye. I got go tussle with some Injuns tomorrow and try to get them off this frontier I’m discoverin’.

*curtains close/crowd goes wild (probably because it was short)*

Your takeaway from this story: Actually, I snuck a little history lesson in on you. Billy Ray Cyrus may be a native Kentuckian, but he did not invent the mullet.

Killin' Bigfoot

Ah-ight, y’all. Stuff gettin’ real now and Ima steppin’ in. Somebody got to cuz we need some anssers.

What’s happend:

Oklahoma State Rep. J.J. Humphrey, he done hauled off and introduced a bill to make hunting Bigfoot legal in that state.

Here’s his bill. It’s 1 page long.

I’m familiar with all things Bigfootish. Near my part-time home in the hills of North Georgia, they’s a Bigfoot museum.

I ain’t never been in it ‘cause it cost $5. That’s my lottery ticket money right there. But I’m told it’s a collection of grainy pichers of Bigfoot and a few newspaper clippins.

Bigfoot Exhibition in Ellijay, GA

But I got some questions for Rep. Humpfrey:

-First, why y’all wanna kill Sack-o-squash?

Maybe he rummaged through yer garbage can or done ate one of yer baby goats or something. But as far as we know, he ain’t never hurt nobody.

Oh, they’s tales of carnage, but unless you can name a name of someone he kilt, like Uncle Gid or Aunt Maureen, you just rumorin’.

-What’s the ‘Bigfoot hunting season’ gonna look like? Is it gonna be like deer season and we only hunt ‘em when they out sniffin’ around for a mate? If so, then imagine this sinario:

You gots your proper huntin’ license. You done stuffed some branches down yer favorite cammo britches to hide yerself (or maybe amuse yerself), and suddenly you hear something.

It’s ol’ Yeti! Anna he’s comin’ yor way!

Uh, oh. What that you’s seeing? That looks like breasties on that thing. Is that a… a…?!?

It is! It’s Bigfoot woman!

Now whatcha gon do?

You gonna go killin’ Sissysquatch?

I don’t think so.

Rep. Humphrey, did it ever occur to you that they has to be girl hairy mans in order to get more man hairy mans? How do you think we got these Bigfoots? (I know, using English right it’s Bigfeets.)

-And finally, whachyall gonna do once you’ve bagged a Bigfoot. Eat it?

Let’s say that is whachyall gonna do. Gonna cook ‘im and eat ‘im. If Bigfoot is half man, don’t that mean you’uns done broke the law cause you now a cannable?

Or dijee just break half the law?

I got a solootion. Only eat half of ‘im. That way, when the law busts in your door, you can say you only ate the half that wasn’t human.

Problem solved right there.

Let Bigfoot season begin!

Keeping Up? Not So Much

Pour some wine, it’s whine time.

Another new year’s celebration has come and gone, and I’m feeling left behind.

Like most people my age – OK, older people – I rang in the New Year with the TV. I was bouncing around the channels trying to find something I could relate to and mostly couldn’t.

I initially hung out with Anderson Cooper and Andy Cohen because Leslie Allen Jordan had told us he was going to help ring in the new year with them.

Leslie Jordan is a funny dude, and I was under the impression he’d be co-hosting the show. Turns out, all he did was a quick guest shot promoting his new TV series. Two minutes and done.

To me, it seemed that almost everyone who made an appearance on any of the New Year’s Eve shows was simply there to promote something: a new show, a new movie, or new music.

And on the subject of the music, who were these people? It’s true, each network’s party had a few marquee names, but there were a whole lot of performers I did not know.

Example, Anderson and Andy had Jimmy Buffett (pre-recorded, one song), but they also had Dulce Sloan, Desus & Mero, and Aloe Blacc.

Uh…

Carson Daly’s party featured Sting, but who was this Shirazee performing with him? Carson also had Paak, Doja Cat and Chloe x Halle.

Uh…

The last 18 years of my radio career were spent doing mornings at a pop music station. Pink, Katy Perry, Maroon Five, Taylor Swift… I loved it all.

Down the hall were sister stations, one playing hit music designed to cater to older kids and young adults and another playing country music. We were all in each other’s studios all the time, and keeping up with music and celebrities was part of the job.

Retiring from radio, I promised myself I’d stay current. No longer being fully immersed in pop culture, it would be easy to slip in to grandparent mode. You know, “good lord, what kind of music is that?!?”

I wasn’t going to let myself do it.

Oops.

The main reason it happened is that I just don’t care for a lot of the sonic trends in pop music right now. Seems like we’re getting way more music from computers than from instruments.

But that’s on me. My grandparents didn’t like the guitar music of The Beatles and everybody claims to have hated disco! Changing trends will alienate some people.

Also, we’re in a phase of artist collaborations where it seems hardly anyone works on their own anymore, making it difficult for casual listeners to connect to artists and become intimately involved with their music.

In some cases, collaborations have worked out really well. Gwen Stefani’s music would only be heard as an oldies song if she hadn’t hitched up with Blake Shelton. But those are two established names teaming up.

What about the lesser known artists?

Let’s say you know Ed Sheeran, but do you know his collaborators Stormzy and Burna Boy?

Maybe you know Eminem, but have you heard his song with Juice WRLD? (Pronounced ‘world’.)

And I can almost assure you we wouldn’t know who Lil Nas X was if he hadn’t teamed up with Hannah Montana’s dad.*

If the legends were still producing current music, you wouldn’t be hearing just the Eagles or Elton John. You’d be hearing the Eagles featuring Old L’il Hamster. Or Elton John with LemonAyd featuring Rattlesn8 Venumb.

(Yes, it’s misspelled. It must be, that’s what makes it cool. Gosh, how old are you??)

Music never stands still. But we do. At some point in our lives, even if subconsciously, most of us stop moving with the trends and stay latched to music genres that suit our ears. It’s the very reason oldies stations exist.

Stylistically however, music is ever evolving. To be knowledgeable of all the names and styles being constantly introduced, dang! It’s just hard to keep up.

And I haven’t. So I felt mostly left out on New Year’s Eve

Next year, we need a new New Year’s party. Or perhaps an old New Year’s party.

Right now, I’m wallering around on the floor, pressing my little alert button and screaming, “Help, I’ve fallen (behind) and I can’t get (caught) up!”

*If you’ve never heard the song, Old Town Road by Lil Nas X featuring Billy Ray Cyrus, ask Siri or Alexa or Google to play if for you. You don’t have to love it, but you should know that it’s probably the most popular song of the last couple of years. And you probably have heard it – or parts of it. Cute side note: Miley Cyrus says L’il Nas grew up watching Hannah Montana and always dreamed of one day singing with her dad. Dreams can come true. And sometimes pay off big time!

Santa Claus: Myth or Mystery?

Davis Terrell Museum of Art

Growing up, I remember asking, “Is Santa real?” I can even remember we were riding in the car at the time. And I remember the answer from my Mom.

“The spirit of Santa is very much real.”

That sounded like a dodge, but my 8-year old brain couldn’t conclude conclusively anything conclusive, so I stuck by ol’ Santa.

Santa brought stuff. That’s reason to believe right there. Give up believing and you might not get stuff anymore.

In hindsight, I have to say that Santa almost never brought what I wanted, but Mom was able to explain that issue away simply and casually.

“Santa doesn’t have time to make every single thing every single child wants, so he brings what he can.”

That the explanation was so simple made it a pretty good pitch for the Big Man. Certainly good enough for me.

Then it happened.

I was 10 when my best friend Trey asked if I’d like to see the drums Santa was bringing his sister.

I nodded yes, but inside I was screaming, NOOO! I didn’t like it, and I did not want to do this thing. But off we went into the attic to see this shiny drum set, sitting there waiting for a Christmas delivery.

That was gut punch.

The problem was not that I didn’t know, I think I kinda sorta halfway partly did. The problem was that I didn’t want to know for sure.

I wanted to continue to believe. If I’m being honest, I thought - or hoped - my friend was lying. Or maybe badly misinformed.

Today, I can report that I still believe, and it’s because I now understand Santa. His elves all work at Amazon, and on a moment’s notice, his reindeer can turn into a FedEx, UPS or USPS truck.

Part of Santa’s magic.

Bonus: I now get the stuff I ask for. Thanks, Santa!

One Christmas many years ago, Santa brought me a t-shirt with a slogan about believing that still resonates today. It read:

“Everybody needs to believe in something. I believe I’ll have another beer.”

Powerful message.

To the top of the porch! To the top of the wall!
Dash away! Dash away! To the fridge down the hall!

A Not So Moooving Tale

The water running through our place is a creek. It’s wider in many places than most of the Rio Grande that separates Mexico and Texas, but it’s named as a creek.

Though mostly quite shallow, it’s usually deep enough to float a kayak. Through the years, we’ve put in upstream and kayaked back to our house dozens of times.

It’s a pleasant 3-hour float with a few rapids that are just enough to excite you and possibly make you spill your beer.

Our kayaks are the hard plastic, sit-on-top variety. You can stack 4 of them in the bed of a pickup, no problem.

On a hot summer day, as we were loading up the kayaks, neighbors came over with some useful information. They had just finished the float and thought we should know there was a dead cow in the creek.

“You can paddle around it, but it’s starting to swell up and it’s pretty nasty,” they warned.

I knew where it would be. About half an hour into the float, there’s a pasture with no fence along the creek. There is a spot where cows can angle their way down the 6-foot bank to the water, but the creek bank mostly serves as the edge of the pasture.

I wondered if the cow had gotten too close to the edge and fallen down the bank, but it seemed more likely it probably wandered out into the water and couldn’t get back. The creek is neither deep nor swift in that area, but its rocky bottom would be enough to confound a cow trying to maneuver in the water.

But good information, so thanks. And off we went.

Rollin’ on the riv… uh, creek

Sure enough, as we floated alongside the pasture, we spotted the cow. The creek narrows up a bit in this area, so we’d have to float within a few inches of the thing, but there was enough water to get by.

I was at the front of the group, so I would be the first to go through the cow zone. No problem, this was my creek and my kayak, and I had never fallen off it, ever.

Never say never.

I was right beside that swollen carcass when I capsized.

I was able to grab the kayak immediately, keeping it from getting away, but there I was, lying in the creek, completely submerged, bathing in - and sputtering out - dead cow water.

Everyone in the group behind me, including my wife, was laughing hysterically. They knew the only thing injured was my pride.

So what the heck just happened?

How could such a skilled floater like myself possibly fall out of a slow-moving kayak in a creek barely 18-inches deep? And right there at that dead, puffed-up nastiness!

I climbed back on my kayak, but with two hours still left in the float, there was plenty of time to wear my cow-soaked clothes and for the humiliation to fester.

The laughter from the rest of the group was relentless. One of the most miserable moments of my life was apparently making their year.

Finally back at the house I was able to get into the shower. I washed my body, I washed my hair. I washed my body again, I washed my hair again. Rinsed and repeated, over and over.

I used every drop of hot water available, then stood there longer as the water turned cold. When I finally stepped out of the shower, I threw the washcloth away, dried off and threw the towel away.

Let me tell you, friends. There ain’t enough soap and water in the state of Georgia to wash away certain sins. And being baptized in dead cow water is one of them.

Make America Grill Again

I write about the thrill of the grill too much, but I know what I’m doing with meat and fire. It’s a blessed curse.

So I cooked these ribs. The ribs were fabulous. The best I ever cooked. They were perfect. Nobody liked them. They were terrible. Some said they were undercooked. They had no flavor. Probably the worst ever. And so great.

It was the pig’s fault. It may have been a sick pig. Sick pigs are no good. The pig may have been in a bad mood the day it processed. When a pig is angry or not feeling good when it’s butchered, it transfers to the meat. The ham, the ribs, the bacon. That’s why bacon sometimes spoils when left in the refrigerator a long time. You need a pig that’s in a good mood on the day it gets processed. In China - or somewhere over there - they stick an air hose up a pig’s butt and blow ‘em up to about twice their normal size before they’re processed. It makes the ribs twice as big, but they only have half the flavor. It’s terrible. They do something similar in Russia with mules. We don’t eat mules but they do in Russia. They call it Moscow Mule. It’s mules from Moscow. They love their mules in Moscow. One day they may learn to make mule powder so they can mix it with milk in a blender and make a protein shake like we do. But they don’t do it now. The Russians are way behind us in that technology.

The charcoal might have gotten old. Charcoal can absorb too much moisture if left out too long. That’s a hoax. I keep the charcoal on the porch right next to my rocking chair that’s been there for years. Many, many years. That chair, it doesn’t absorb moisture. Unless it rains. But then it dries out in one day. Maybe two, if it rains more than one day. Or a week, if it keeps raining. But it dries out. And so does the charcoal. Nothing wrong with the charcoal. Unless it was bad.

You want to use lump charcoal, not briquettes. Lump is the best. It burns hotter, It burns more evenly. But there’s a lot of little lumps that fall between the grates in the grill, so you lose a lot. It’s terrible. I don’t like lump charcoal. You can’t spread it like you can briquettes. It’s uneven and won’t spread. You have to use tongs to move it around. You have to pick up those lumps with tongs like you do a dirty diaper. You know, when you want to take a diaper to the trash and you want it as far away from you as possible, so you use tongs. And you put it in the trash and it goes to the landfill and becomes environmental waste. Hazardous waste. It’s terrible. But that’s gonna be fixed. They working on a baby that doesn’t poop. Science is working on that. A poopless baby. Won’t poop. Won’t pollute. We should have poopless babies in two weeks. Or next summer. Maybe two years, depending on whether the medical community is onboard. They’re not. Some are. Doctors don’t want poopless babies. It’s bad for their business. Especially pediatricians. They make money off of babies that poop too much. They don’t want it. And the gastroenter… gastro… gastro-entomologists. The doctors that work on your intestines. They don’t want this. They make money on this. They don’t want it. It’s horrible. I had colon cancer and a gastro doctor - that sounds like Castro doctor, doesn’t it. But a Castro doctor would be Cuban. There’s nothing wrong with Cubans. They’re wonderful people. They make a great sandwich. I eat a lot of Cuban sandwiches. Made by a real Cuban lady. She’s a lovely lady. From Cuba. Down in the Philippines. Great people, horrible leaders there. But a really great sandwich. I don’t know that they even do research on poopless babies. If they do, they are way behind us. But if you ever have colon cancer, you want a gastro guy. I had it. I had colon cancer. One fixed me, Trust me, they’re great, great people. They heal people, they fix people. We need more of them. And they deserve a raise. They should charge more than they do. They’re great.

The ribs are great. You shouldn’t eat them. Not good. No good.

Grilling 101: Meat And Greet

I’ve held this in all I can. Hold my beer while I let this beast out.

I am a live and let live guy, but I’ve been watching this ongoing corruption of our family households long enough.

What’s finally taken me over the edge is offering to grill burgers for the neighbors. My (now former) friend asks what he can bring, then makes a suggestion.

“How ‘bout throwing some green tomatoes on the grill with the burgers?”

I have a better idea. How ‘bout throwing yourself off a real tall building.

With ‘pearls’ of fresh mozzarella. Fresh moz should be banished from the cheese family. Great mouth-feel, zero taste.

The trend has been growing for a number of years, and I’ve sat quietly in the corner. Today, I’m taking a stand.

Vegetables have no place on the grill.

None. Nada. Zip. Stop it.

I get roasting certain vegetables, like carrots. But roasting involves an oven, not a grill.

A grill is made for meat and meat alone.

Things that don’t belong on the grill: tomatoes, potatoes, zucchini, squash, eggplant, broccoli, cauliflower, and okra.

Green tomatoes and okra are only properly prepared when fried. Most all of the other veggies mentioned should be mixed with mushroom soup, gobs of cheese, topped with crumbled Ritz crackers and baked.

In the oven.

Grilled eggplant and zucchini. Only edible with large amounts of ranch dressing.

Foods are not automatically interchangeable in preparation, as some cooks want you to believe.

For instance, carrots are delicious in a cake. But ever eaten a chicken cake? Then why put carrots on a grill?

Speaking of foul (fowl) things, one more before I quit.

For several years, we visited (now former) friends on Sunday nights. Homemade pizza on Sunday night is their family tradition and we were happy to be included. They’ve quit inviting us, and I don’t miss them.

They started grilling the pizza.

Look, y’all. I’m fine with whatever you do in the privacy of your own home, just don’t try to convert me.

And they shouldn’t be doing it in front of their two children who are growing up thinking pizza on the grill is okay.

What we are seeing is a long, slow erosion of our traditional values. American values built on cheese, frying stuff and sizzling animal flesh on a hot grill.

That’s my America.

What’s currently happening to the American grill has the marks of French or Mediterranean kitchen liberalism all over it.

Some would call those grill marks.

Fine. Just don’t call me to eat it.

Making a Connection

For an older guy, I’m actually pretty comfortable with the ‘internet of things.’

The internet of things (IoT) is what connects us. To each other, to our things. It even connects things to things without human interaction.

IoT is what allows you to pull up an app and set the thermostat at your house to a comfortable temperature before you get home. It allows us to do a bank transfer on our cell phones and shop online.

The question with all this connectivity always comes back to how much privacy are we giving up and who is collecting it?

In some cases we don’t care. The grocery store is indeed keeping track of what you buy. It’s how you get those custom coupons in the mail or email. (In my house, we apparently eat a lot of cheese.)

But who else knows? Does Chinese Intel know I just bought a Genuine Classic 500 Double-Hinged Corkscrew online?

$17.99, by the way.

That may seem expensive for a corkscrew, but don’t overlook the words ‘genuine’ and ‘classic.’ You don’t get those words for free, pal.

Besides having apps to connect us to our things, a lot of us use a home hub so that we don’t actually have to go to the trouble of picking up our phones and tapping an app. We can simply give the hub a voice command.

At the moment, our hub is Amazon’s Alexa.

Besides knowing jokes, recipes, and what I should wear on Halloween, one of the things Alexa does is notifications. When there’s a circling yellow light on her head, she got something to say to you.

Usually, the notification is that a package from Amazon has been delivered. Good info to know because it’s probably sitting on my front porch in full view of porch pirates.

Recently though I got a notification that shook me up a bit.

Noticing Alexa’s yellow halo, I asked what’s up and got this response:

“Your OfficeJet HP 4650 Series printer will need toner soon. Say ‘order toner’ to place an order.”

Whoa… whoa… whoa!

Since when did my printer and Alexa become friends?

What’s going on in this house when I’m not here? Does the thermostat know Alexa has a new boyfriend?

But let’s go back to the first question. How did lovely Alexa and printer boy become acquainted?

I didn’t connect them, did I? What would be the point? Anytime I’m printing something, I’m at my computer. Have I gotten too lazy to touch the ‘print’ button?

While bewildered - and somewhat intrigued - I basically just blew it off and didn’t respond to Alexa’s request to order toner.

Alexa is not to be brushed aside so casually. In my email the next day was this note:

Hello Allen Tibbetts,
You are receiving this message because you connected your HP OfficeJet 4650 printer to Alexa on 4/23/20. Alexa noticed that you will need to replace your HP 63 Black Toner soon, based on your HP OfficeJet 4650 series usage.

So the printer is having an affair with Alexa and telling her my secrets? Like how much I’m printing?

Is it also telling her what I’m printing?

Has Alexa now seen my 401k statement? And what else might be going on?

Is she secretly turning on the heat just to get the thermostat all hot and bothered, then turning on the air to freeze it out before she starts letting the printer whisper secrets to her?

Alexa can turn on our TV. Is she watching it while we’re not here?

Does she turn the living room lights off and on when she’s bored?

My house appears to no longer be a static structure but a living creature!

I’m leery, y’all. But here’s why I’m not yet too worried.

With nothing going on one day, I asked Alexa what I should do. She suggested we play a game of Truth Or Dare.

Game on!

For a dare, she told me to pretend I was crying for 10 seconds. I did. Then she turned off. No response, nothing else. She just shut off.

I figured it was something I did wrong, so I tried again.

This time she dares me to whinny like a horse. I give it my best shot. When I’m finished, no response. No “well done!” No congratulations. She just shuts down.

That’s not how this game works. But it’s got to be something I’m doing wrong. Let’s try one more time.

“Alexa, let’s play truth or dare,” I say. And this time, I’ll ask for a truth.

For a truth she asked, “Can you touch your the end of your nose with your tongue?”

No, I can’t.

This time, she responds. “I’m sorry I can’t help you with that.” And once again, she’s done. Just shuts off.

Amazon admits they employ listeners to improve the interaction between Alexa and the user to make Alexa more responsive, more life-like.

I can only imagine some listeners rolling in the floor laughing and wondering to each other, ‘let’s see what other stupid things we can make people do.’

Alexa, like Siri and OK Google, is called AI, artificial intelligence. That’s about right, and it’s the one thing I have in common with them all.

Between us, any sign of intelligence is indeed artificial.

Plastic Fantastic

I’m not terribly concerned about how much plastic I consume. Maybe I should be, I’m just not.

Have you eaten a credit card today?

I am concerned about plastic in general. We use an awful lot of it, and it doesn’t break down easily in the earth.

So I woke up this morning and decided I would try to use less plastic today. Yep, I’m gonna be better, starting today.

It’s going to be a good morning.

I pull the plastic lid off the plastic coffee container and prepare for the day. While the coffee is brewing in my all-plastic coffee maker, breakfast begins.

The yogurt is in a plastic tub, but there are things beyond my control.

Next, I pull out the plastic storage container with the freshly-cut strawberries.

Yogurt, strawberries, a drizzle of honey… yum! Oh, and some granola for crunch.

Packaged in plastic, of course.

Time to head to the golf course. I’ll throw in a couple of drinks for the round.

If you’re asking, ‘hey, don’t your drinks usually come from a plastic flask in your bag?’ the answer is yes, sometimes. I do indeed have one available to assuage my soul when I play badly. (Pretty much daily.)

By now, you are probably thinking, dang! This boy’s already wrecked his be-better-at-plastic-awareness day!

I have not.

Some things are out of my control. It’s gonna be a good day!

Arriving at the golf course, I pull out my plastic credit card to pay for my round, signing the receipt with a plastic pen.

One of my regular partners has already saddled up and pulls up to fetch me. It occurs to me that other than its fiberglass body, our golf cart is almost all plastic.

Just the way it is. Let’s play golf!

On the first tee, I pull out a couple of plastic tees. Oh sure, you can buy wooden tees, but I don’t buy tees. I pick them up every time someone has left one on the tee box, and most people use plastic tees because they don’t break easily.

Stop pointing fingers. I didn’t invent the tee.

After a few holes, it’s time to get into my bag for the lunch I prepared before leaving the house. A sandwich and a Golden Delicious apple, cut into small pieces. Both stored in… um, baggies.

No matter. I’m aware, and that’s what really matters. It’s gonna be a good afternoon!

After golf, there’s a text message waiting on my phone. It’s from my wife, and she wants me to grab a few things from the store for fajitas tonight.

Oh boy! I love fajitas.

In the produce section, let’s grab a tomato and of course put it in a little plastic produce bag.

Onion… well, you gotta keep these things separate; it’ll have its own bag. As will the pepper. And cilantro.

Ooo, these avocados look good. Let’s get two and put them In a bag.

A sidebar: Attention, grocery stores! If I can break a windshield by throwing an avocado through it, that’s not a ripe avocado, and you slapping ‘ripe’ label on it doesn’t make it so.

So we’re leaving the produce section with 5 separate plastic bags neatly tucked in to this plastic shopping basket I’m toting.

It’s OK, I’m OK. I’m not in control of the world.

The tortillas are in their own plastic bag, and the chicken is wrapped in plastic, but it’s on a foam tray. Foam made of the same petroleum that’s used to make plastic, but what can I do about that?

But now I’m through getting plastic. Let’s get outta here.

Since this was an unplanned visit to the grocery store, I don’t have reusable bags with me. My plastic bags will have to go into plastic checkout bags, and once again, I’ll pull out the plastic to pay for all this plastic.

This really isn’t working out as I hoped, but I can see what’s going on, and hey, fajitas!

It’s gonna be a good evening!

Preparing dinner, I notice of how much plastic there is in our kitchen.

The spice rack is full of little plastic bottles, half my utensils are plastic.

After dinner, the plates are cleared into a plastic trashcan lined with a plastic trash bag. Dishes are washed with detergent squirted from a plastic bottle.

So let’s reflect on the day.

I won’t say today has been a failure. The sun was shining, I played golf and spent some time with friends I like.

But my personal plastic-awareness parade has worn me down a little.

All our lives, we are told one man/woman can make a world of difference, that the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.

Making a difference today hasn’t worked out. My personal journey to use less plastic got out of bed but couldn’t find its shoes.

All is not lost, however. I have filled a little red plastic cup up to the brim with something brown and tasty. It’s chill time.

Yep, it’s gonna be a good night.

Picture This

There was an editorial in the New York Times last week entitled, The Nude Selfie Is Now High Art.

Before we go any farther, I should point out it was published on 4/20. I think by now even my mom knows 420 is a number associated with marijuana culture. So note that a piece on ‘high’ art was published on 4/20.

But let’s get back to the nude selfie part and what makes it art, high or not.

The author contends self-isolation has led many of us to a monogamous sex life.

Skype or Zoom or Facetime with a willing partner can add a little flair, but all this social distancing is leaving a whole lot of folk as basically masters of their own domain, as Seinfeld once put it.

Making do on our own involves more imagination and less actual touching of another person. Nude selfies from friends could only help, I guessing.

The article quotes one dude who apparently wakes up in the morning to nude pictures posted to him or to his accounts on certain social media.

He’s quoted as saying, “I keep getting explicit photos from people I thought were just my friends. It’s nice to know they’re thinking of me.”

Really!? That’s really a thing?

The author of this article is apparently a learned lady when it comes to art. There’s all kinds of trying to make the idea work by comparing the nude selfie to some famous artists’ self portraits.

The point of her piece is summed up thusly:

“…nude selfies have become one symbol of resilience, a refusal to let social distancing render us sexless. Nude selfies are no longer foreplay, a whetting of a lover’s appetite, but the whole meal.”*

I’m all in for fresh ideas, so I decided to try an experiment. I took a nude photo of myself and sent it to someone who hasn’t seen me naked in years.

My wife.

“This ain’t no appetizer, baby!” I wrote. “This is the whole meal.

Apparently, she decided now would be a great time to go on a diet.

*The Nude Selfie Is Now High Art, an editorial by Diana Spechler, published 4/20/200 by The New York Times

When the Good Ones are Gone (Farewell, John Prine)

I auditioned for a gig as a lounge singer once.

It was at a local hotel and they were looking for someone to sing in the bar each evening. Because I used to beat on a guitar as part of my radio show - and they had heard it - they wanted to know if I could actually entertain.

Nope.

No confidence at all in whatever musical talent I thought I had.

I wrote poems and songs for my show like this:

All the great philosophers have written down their thoughts
As to why a life of celibacy should not make me distraught
They say that I’d be wiser, that there’s a pile of mud
The only wiser I ever got belonged to my good friend Bud.

That was part of a song written with a friend and co-worker called Looking at Love Through the Bottom of a Bud.

Budweiser. You got that, right? Hey, you write country music, you need a drinkin’ song.

We also wrote songs called I’m in Love With a Polled Hereford Queen (I was dating the National Polled Hereford queen at the time) and Let’s Go to Jekyll and Hide, a song about Jekyll Island, Georgia.

Life in South Georgia.

I’d love to have been a songwriter. I gravitate toward people that can turn a phrase.

My mom sent me a little part of my past this week.

I don’t remember writing it, but she suspects it was my early teenage years. The title indicates it was likely written around Easter though it seems to have nothing to do with Easter.

Unless you celebrate with salmon.

I’m glad she saved it. Honestly, I don’t pay much attention to my former self.

She sent it because we were talking about John Prine’s passing this week, and I was wondering how he got comfortable with some pretty goofy lyrics he is known and loved for.

I was a big John Prine fan. Mom’s not so familiar with him, but she is a big fan of Bob Dylan and knows Dylan was a big John Prine fan.

If you talk with your mom often enough, you can cover a lot of territory.

Prine’s lyrical genius is what I wanted for myself. Instead, you get this:

Looking ‘cross that pasture at that big ol’ hunk of cow
She is such a beauty, I’d love to love her now
She won’t even look at me with her big brown eyes
She just flares her nostrils and swats away the flies.

Aging Quietly? I Don't Think So

We try to maintain a sense of humor about getting older.

It starts when you get teased about those first gray hairs showing up. But by golly, you look so darn dashing, let them tease.

I think our personal documentation of aging is mostly visual. Gray hairs, laugh lines, a growing paunch.

Sadly, the occasional gray eventually turns into a head-full, the laugh lines are still there when you’re not laughing, and we get bigger and softer in the middle.

It ain’t funny.

But while we’re basing age on what we see, I believe our brains are quietly cataloging verbal makers, the things we’re hearing.

Let’s start with being addressed differently. You get a title. You’re a Mister or a Miss or a Misses.

And while you tell yourself it’s no big deal, it registers like little noises. Maybe like a cap gun at first.

Hey, Mr. Tibbetts (pop!). Hey, Ms. Beverly (pop!)

To this day, I do not like being call ‘mister’ anything. Mr. Tibbetts, Mr. Allen… it all sounds like ‘grandpa’ to me.

Graduating to the next level, those cues become even louder, like firecrackers. People start saying sir or ma’am to you.

Yes sir (pow!). No ma’am (pow!).

Hey, we all get it. Saying mister and yes sir… It’s respectful, signs of a good raisin’. I just don’t like it.

The next sounds are louder still, maybe gunshots. That’s when the clerk looks at you and asks, “Do you qualify for our senior rate?”

In other words, ‘you look 65 or older to me. Are you 65 or older? ‘Cause you look 65 or older. Otherwise, why would I ask if you’re 65 or older?’

(Boom!)

I thought the noises would stop there because, what’s left?

Plenty, apparently.

We do our best to stay active. It doesn’t make us look any younger, but it helps us feel better about the whole aging thing.

We travel. My wife goes to the gym. I play golf, sometimes daily. We walk a lot, sometimes together.

It was on one of those walks recently when the big one exploded.

We had grabbed our hiking poles and trekked into a well-traveled spot on the Benton-MacKaye Trail in North Georgia that features the longest swinging bridge east of the Mississippi.

Toccoa River Swinging Bridge in Fannin County, GA

From the parking area, it’s a fairly short hike in, so it’s a popular spot for families to spend some time together.

It was on the way back out that we fell in behind a young mother and her fussy 4-year old. I’m guessing at his age, but it was clearly way past nap time.

What he wanted was to be carried, and she was having none of it. Therefore, his job was to make it as difficult as possible for her to make any progress getting back to the car unless she picked him up.

She threatened to withhold favors. “I’m not going to hold your hand if you keep crying.”

She tried shaming him. “See that little girl looking at you? She probably thinks you’re a big baby.”

Then my favorite, for creativity.

She told him Sasquatch would hear him if he didn’t stop crying.

Y’all, I am not a parent. But if I were, and if I thought I could shut up a fussy kid by telling him Bigfoot would eat him, I would absolutely use that.

The trail was narrow and it was really slow going, but she was doing her best, so we followed along politely.

Finally, we reached a point where we could to get around them.

“Look,” the mom pointed out, “now we’re being passed by elderly people with sticks.”

The elderly. With sticks.

KA-BOOOOM!!! (with endless rumbles of thunder echoing endlessly into the distance…)

Damn, lady. Just damn.

Getting Old is Getting Old

This was one of the very first tales written when I started this blog. It’s being republished now as a set-up for next week’s story as I have apparently reached a new milestone in the aging process. So consider this some background to my struggle.

Man, I’m fighting it.

Truth is, I made a deal with myself to never get old. As a younger man, you look at older men and think, “I ain’t ever gonna be like that.”

You think that because you’re an idiot. A handsome, young idiot, but you can’t stop stupid.

The old line that getting older beats the alternative isn’t cutting it anymore. Not that I’m particularly interested in dying, but…

Where did my full head of brown hair go? What’s with these love handles? Why is my wife tweezing hair from my ears?

It doesn’t get better. Looks like I’m starting to get moobs. Man boobs. I’ve started doing pushups. Not helping. I did 10 yesterday and it still looks like moobs.

What’s it going to take? 15? I don’t think I can do that many.

For a Christmas gift, I’ve asked my wife for a magnifying mirror. My eyesight is such that after I shave, if I get in some good light, I’m appalled to discover what I’ve missed.

I can only imagine what the check-out girl at the store thinks when she sees me. “Hey, old man, next time you hold a razor, try opening your eyes!”

Another thing I was never going to get was turkey neck. You know that loose skin that runs from an old guy’s chin to his neck. It’s the equivalent of back-arm waddle on older women.

I’m starting to see it develop.

I’ve consulted a friend from a plastic surgeon’s office. She says it would be best to get a neck ‘tuck’ done now while I’m younger. It’s expensive.

Maybe I should ask for that instead of a mirror. “Honey, what I really want for Christmas is plastic surgery”.

Let’s see how far I get with that.

The young lady that cuts my hair gives me tips on how to hide the fact that I am severely thinning on top. That includes selling me stuff that ‘might’ grow new hair and something else that adds volume.

I’ve stopped using it. Anything that fluffs my hair makes me look like a TV preacher. Can I get an amen?!

While we’re on the subject of hair, let’s talk about going gray in places other than the top of your head. The eyebrows, of course. (I’m sorry, what did you have in mind?)

Have you noticed that gray eyebrows grow straight out from your head. It’s like you’re growing a horn.

For as long as the occasional gray – OK, white – eyebrows have been popping up, I’ve been plucking.

This is a war I am losing.

I’ve eventually got to decide if I’m going to have any real eyebrows or do the Tammy Faye Baker: pluck them all out and paint new ones on.

I sense a theme here. Maybe I have a future on the PTL Network. Is it still on the air?

A Spring Fling

This feels like I’m cheating. I wrote a tale about this person fairly recently, and now here she comes again.

The problem any writer has is fresh ideas. When my tank is empty, I find visiting the social media posts of certain people to be quite useful.

So if you haven’t read The Cat in the Hat on Xanax, take a moment and do so. It will help you understand exactly what we’re dealing with here.

The first day of spring arrived this week. Her posts from Minnesota reminded me that spring doesn’t look the same everywhere.

Even in the hills of North Georgia, it’s been a shorts and t-shirt kind of week. Expect that to be be my uniform for the next eight months. I’m all about minimal clothing. (Full disclosure: in my 20s, I thought I’d be a nudist. In my 60s, having seen myself nude, plans changed. Be grateful.)

In Minnesota, the beginning of spring brought a fresh blanket of snow, apparently. Up popped a picture of a snow kitten.

I would have guessed snow horse, but she says it’s a kitten so lets’ go with that.

What makes a 50-ish year old woman see fresh snow and think, ‘hey, I’m gonna go outside and build a snow kitten?’

Correct answer: she’s a dang nut.

If you answered ‘she’s a crazy cat lady,’ you get points, but crazy cat ladies are usually single. This one has a husband. I’ve met him. Other than being married to a dang nut, he has no other glaring personality disorders.

Any snow kitten needs an owner to cuddle with, I reckon, so along with the snow kitten, we also had what was identified as a ‘snow person.’

This is where my brain got fuzzy.

Her post read, “a snow person and her cat.”

As an enlightened guy, ‘snow person’ indicates to me this is a gender-neutral person of snow.

But when it’s a snow person and her cat, that sorta identifies said person of snow as a female.

As a heterosexual male, I’m conflicted. Is this snow person available or not?

My wife says I cannot date either snow women or snow men. So, asking for a friend.

A very, very lonesome friend, apparently.

Coronaville Times: All The News That's Fit to Spread

Read all about it!!

I shy away from writing about current events. Two weeks later, the event is no longer current, so why would anyone go back and read my story?

Translated: I write classic stuff for the ages.

If I write something on events specific to today, who’s gonna care 700 years from now in 2720?

But if I write about how cats are superior to humans, my words will resonate now, then wind up in future science textbooks. Probably in a class cats take call Humans 101: How To Train Them.

I have written on current events a couple of times. The Gay Apocalypse comes to mind. It was brilliant! And so spot on, mate!

It was 2015 and the Supreme Court was a month away from voting on legalizing gay marriage. In that story, I proclaimed with certainty they would allow it.

I was right, but that is soooo yesterday, man. Other than it proves me a modern day Nostradamus, why read it today?

Still, while it’s perhaps not a timeless literary classic, it might one day prove me to be a genius of history. I’ll settle for that.

But y’all, there’s too much oddity to ignore coming out of CORVID-19, a/k/a the coronavirus.

When a recent survey indicated 38% of Americans won’t drink a Corona beer right now, my response was…

38%? Surprising. I thought the American stupidity quotient was way higher than that.

Let’s pause to make sure we’re on the same page. Almost 4 in every 10 Americans apparently feel like Corona Beer has something to do with Coronavirus. (I’m good a math, too.)

Now, let’s time-jump forward. I’m the keynote speaker for the graduating class (of cats?) in 2720, and I’ve been asked to speak on the ‘Plague of 2020.’

*ahem*

OK, what had happened was…

A virus was sweeping the world, slowly. People in every country gettin’ sick.

Among the afflicted were some passengers on a big cruise ship. The ship had completed a visit to over 50 countries and as it returned to U.S waters, 21 of the 3,500 people on board appeared to have the virus.

Because of that, as the boat arrived back in San Francisco, passengers were not allowed to disembark and go home. Instead they were quarantined on the boat.

In Southern Baptist-speak, these were ‘the sick and shut-in.’

A few days later, asked about those passengers, the President of the United States said he preferred them to remain on the ship.

Here are his words:

“I’d rather have the people stay, but I’d go with them (them being his
people in charge of managing the government response). I told them to make the final decision. I would rather—because I like the numbers being where they are. I don’t need to have the numbers double because of one ship that wasn’t our fault.”

Translated: if we have to add those 21 people to the total number of people already infected in the U.S., that might make me look bad.

Y’all, if 200 people walking the streets of San Francisco are purple, and 200 people on a boat in San Francisco Bay are purple, there’s 400 purple people in San Francisco right there. (Told you I was good at math.)

I know you students like referencing past presidents by pictures. Lincoln was the ugly one, Taft was the fat one, Obama was the brown one. The president that said this was the orange one.

Now let’s drop back to the present and its accompanying virus.

I was wandering the aisles of a grocery store the other day and heard two women talking.

“You see me run? I got the h- out of there. Nuh-uh, you ain’t gonna give me corona!”

Not the end. I had the pleasure of listening to them as we moved into the next aisle together.

“I saw that m-f- coming and I’m like, you ain’t givin’ me corona.”

This now bleeds into one of my most sincere gripes these days.

Young, old, black, white, men and women… they’s too many of us using nasty language in public places without caring about who it offends.

Show some class and clean up your mouth when others can hear.

Sorry, jumped the track for a moment.

This is about Corona, isn’t it.

I’ll take two, please. With lime.

The Truth About Brussels Sprouts

The Facebook post featured Brussels spouts being prepared with lemon honey. The author of that post also talked of how yummy they were.

In response, one of her friends said, “I have given up trying to find a good recipe for Brussels sprouts. No matter what other food is paired with them, the other food is ruined and the end product is inedible.”

My thoughts exactly. Actually, that’s worded better than I could have thought it.

There is truly no salvation for Brussels sprouts.

Notice their initials: BS. Think that’s an accident?

Nope. It’s what they taste like.

Raised to eat what I am served and to do so politely, if you serve me Brussels sprouts, I will eat them with no complaints. I hope I even compliment you on them.

I also hope you have a Brussels sprouts-eating dog under the table.

Graphics by Anna

We are regular dinner guests of friends who serve them ‘Italian-style.’ Best I can tell, that involves cooking some bacon, then searing the Brussels sprouts in the bacon grease. How that’s Italian-style, I’m not sure.

Unless pigs were invented in Italy.

They even serve them with the bacon. But as the previous comment implies, that simply ruins perfectly good bacon.

I’ve tried, y’all. With butter, with cheese, roasted, toasted, salted and malted. Sorry, malt was the only thing I could think of to rhyme with salt.

Though if you actually did malt them, you could brew beer with them. How nasty would that be???

Likely, no nastier than the current fad of pot-flavored (hemp) beer.

Hey! Wonder if anyone has tried smoking Brussel sprouts!

Probably. And it was probably after they ate them.

“These taste like crap. Let’s fire one up and see if it’s any good that way.”

If you like Brussels sprouts, good for you. And being in the cabbage family, they are in fact probably good for you.

But here’s my truth: If a Brussels sprout was a critter crawling across my floor, I’d take my shoe and beat it into oblivion. Then I’d take a paper towel, wipe it up and flush it.

Yep, it’s the cockroach of vegetables.

Torched By An Angel

I noticed her as I pulled into the parking lot of the liquor store.

Boy, that sounds seedy. Let me try again…

I noticed her as I pulled my truck into the parking lot. She was attractive, slender with long dark hair. It was a bit of a wet day, so she stood under an awning at a secondary entrance to the building. With a suitcase in front of her, she appeared to be waiting on someone.

I guessed right on that one. She was waiting on me. Or someone like me.

As I exited the store with a box full of wine in my hands, she was standing by my truck.

“Can I get a ride to the Marathon (gas) station?” she asked.

The sum of my knowledge of this North Georgia town I was in is how to get to this bottle shop, a frequent stop for me, but it’s a small town, so finding her gas station shouldn’t be a problem.

“Sure, hop in.”

Before moving a muscle, she had another request.

“Would you mind buying me a small bottle of Fireball?”

Fireball is a cinnamon-spiced whiskey favored by drunk women in their 20s who have yet to learn to shoot tequila. This may or may not be my liquor cabinet.

That wasn’t happening. If you’re out bumming a ride from a stranger, there’s a part of me that wonders if buying you alcohol might be simply fueling your problems. Request denied. I tossed her suitcase in the back of the truck and off we went.

This was a little unlike me. People wandering up to me asking for something usually get nothing.

Don’t get me wrong. If I knew you needed help, you’d get my shirt and shoes in a snowstorm. The problem, of course, is that you don’t know. In my hometown, we see the same people on the same corners with the same cardboard sign they’ve had for years. Begging is their hustle.

So I wondered to myself if I wasn’t helping this person out because she was an attractive female. That was likely the case.

Call it the Pretty Woman syndrome. You know, she’s a precious fallen angel who simply needs a white knight to come along and ‘rescue’ her.

So maybe this day was my day to be her white knight. At any moment, the clouds would roll away, the sun would shine, and her world would be transformed. She’d be filled with renewed hope, joyful of a new day dawning and thanking me profusely for leading her out of her personal darkness.

Yeah, right.

In addition to being nice looking, she was nice, thanking me for the ride, making a little small talk.

She asked if she could use my phone, saying hers was broken. I saw no problem there.

As she tried calling a couple of numbers, she asked if I had been at the store to buy beer.

Wine, I said.

“Can we drink some?”

For this wine, we needed a corkscrew. I told her I didn’t have one.

That was just a flat-out lie. When it comes to needing a corkscrew, call me Scout. Boy Scout. Always prepared. I’d be more likely to not have a spare tire.

But her requests were noticeably starting to stack up.

As we reached her destination and I was unloading her suitcase, she had another.

“Do you have a twenty you could let me have?”

I laughed, and I’m sure she didn’t know why, but it was because I had planned to offer her money anyway.

It’s really rare that I ever have any folding money on me, but on this day I knew I had a little in my wallet, and she seemed to be someone that could use a hand. Her asking for it simply beat me to the punch.

Besides, by this point she had asked for a ride, a bottle of Fireball, the use of my phone, a drink of my wine and now, money. I figured there was nothing left she could ask for.

Wrong.

With a newly-acquired twenty in her hand, she had one more request: “Wanna take me back to the liquor store?”

White Knight didn’t answer that one. He climbed back onto his trusty steed and drove away.

Next time I see Pretty Woman coming on my TV, I’m gonna be tempted to go all Elvis on it: pull out my six-shooter and blow that sucker up.

Or… perhaps I just sell the TV in a yard sale. Maybe I can get my $20 back.