The Good Samaritan / A.K.A. "Where's the hidden camera?"

You ever have one of those days when you think that the whole world is playing a practical joke on you? Well, I sure have. Today was just weird.

It all started this afternoon at my doctor's office. An average visit with thermometers and blood pressure gauges until the doctor hit me with the mother of all questions. Right there in between "how do you like your job?" and "do you need any prescriptions refilled?" she says to me:

"Have you ever sold your body for money or drugs?"

At first, I thought that she was offering me a new career. (I had once been caught by surprise attack at my dentist's office when he took me aside and asked me if I'd like to sell Amway for him so generally nothing surprises me anymore..)

I was taken aback for a moment. The questions were usually along the lines of "do you have a history of heart disease in your family?" or "How often do you exercise?"

But, no............ she asked me if I'd been selling my body for money or drugs.

I hope my hesitation didn't make her think that I was lying when I stammered, "Uh...no....er...not lately? My body?"

I wanted to tell her that I usually only trade my body for things like groceries and oil changes.

The day swerved to an even more uncomfortable stop when I decided that yes, today I would like to be a good citizen.

Nothing wrong with that. Do unto others and all that jazz.........

On my way home from the doctor's office, I passed by an elderly gentleman fighting with his trash can. It was one of those really large plastic ones that are used for recycling, about armpit high. He had the lid open and was leaned way down inside. His arms were inside and he was swatting from side to side with his cane. I figured, "Oh my goodness. He could use some help!"

I had seen him on another occasion walking to his mailbox at a slower than snail's pace and remember thinking how sad it must be when you reach a certain age and your body doesn't perform tasks easily anymore. I have a massive soft spot in my heart for the elderly.

When I saw him with that trash can, I immediately imagined me coming to his aid where afterwards he would thank me profusely, even take my hand and say, "Oh honey...you are just the sweetest thing." We would then strike up a conversation and become fast friends. From time to time, I'd stop by his house for lemonade, Little Debbie oatmeal pies and viewings of his old slides and home movies. Perhaps in the end, he'd have no heirs and would leave me a fortune in rare records and fine barkcloth fabrics. Win-win situation...........

But, back to the story. I turned my car around and parked on the side of the road. At this point, he had flipped the can over and it was out in the road. His cane lay beside it and he was now leaned way over precariously trying to get it righted. He was a tiny little man with back hunched over so that he almost resembled a question mark. He rocked the can back and forth trying to get it back upright.

I walked up to him and towering over him, said with a wide smile, "You need some help there?"

He grunted at me and then backed up from me and continued to struggle with the can.

I figured he was just being stubborn.

I reached for one side of the can and tried to lift it up but for some reason it seemed like the old gent was struggling against me. It was then that I realized through his frenzied gestures and sounds that he was both deaf and mute. The poor fella couldn't figure out what I wanted with him and his trash can. He was signing to me (I don't know sign language) and I was talking really loudly (because for some reason hearing people do that when they talk to someone who doesn't have the luxury of hearing).

We finally got it up right and he started pointing and grunting at a pile of decomposing sludgey something on the ground. For some reason, I immediately thought that he must want to put that pile of whatever into the can. I took stock of the situation and decided that whatever it was happened to be in a realm of "do not touch with hands" so I wandered off to try and find a couple of sticks to scoop it up with.

Before I get back to him, he was waving his arms and making lots of frustrated grunting noises at me. I tried to get the decomposed whatever up and into the can, all the time with him fighting to get the lid closed in front of me. So, here we are in the middle of the street - neither of us communicating - a pile of sludge and a garbage can. Stalemate. Him waving his cane and me with sticks. Neighbors no doubt watching and laughing from behind window sheers.

Thank heavens it finally hit me that he didn't want whatever it was in the can but he had been trying to get whatever it was out of the can. So, along comes me. Little Miss Charity - and I try to undo everything he had been struggling to do. In the end, I tried to take his can up to the top of his driveway but he only took it away from me and gave me a quick sign which I did recognize as "Thank you."

He turned away from me and began to push his can at a rate that must have equated into negative inertia. I walked back to my car faster than the speed of sound while feeling like a puppy with my tail between my legs, looking around to see if anyone had seen my failed attempts.

He really didn't need me and I only ended up feeling stupid and........well, I'm not really sure if I even did any good there. It was almost as bad as the time my mom and I made an elderly lady cry in a nursing home by getting confused and asking her when her husband would be there (he had been dead for years and no...wouldn't be coming).

That was the same day that I helped take a man in a wheel chair down to the cafeteria because he told me that he was supposed to be there. Turns out (according to the nurse who chastised me) that he was on a very strict diet and wasn't supposed to be within a hundred life-threatening yards of that cafeteria. A grain of salt could kill him.

So, yes.........All in all. I'm out changing lives. Making the world a better place. Beats selling my body for drugs and money, I guess. Keeps me off the streets, as they say.

See Rock City

These are strange times that we live in.

In the past week alone, Toys R Us announced that they are going to stop selling toys, a 62 mile wide giant mutant ant colony was discovered under Melbourne, Australia and Costco started selling caskets alongside giant jars of mustard and Goodyear tires.

I had to get away from it all. Somewhere tranquil and relaxing. Somewhere away from the hectic pace and worries of the world. Some folks might think of a spa or perhaps a weekend vacation at the shore. Me? Rock City.

I quickly zapped off a wishful email to Mark saying that I couldn't stop thinking about Rock City. I expected the usual response of "What's Rock City?" or "Are you kidding? Rock City? Whaaa?" but instead waiting in my in-box moments later was an email saying, "Rock City!! Let's go!!"

I rubbed my eyes like a child who had just been promised Disney World or a river of molten chocolate..........

Whoooo doggies! I had found someone who would actually drive for hours and teeter up that steep slope to the wondrous world at the edge of Lookout Mountain! The next morning, we piled into the car and hit the road with perfect weather and mix CDs to lead the way. In the blinking of an eye, it was on.

After a couple of hours in the car and a steep climb up the mountain side complete with the pleasant smell of grinding brakes and a pit-stop for deep fried pickles, we ended up at our Mecca - the roadside institution created by Garnet and Frieda Carter over 70 years ago. R O C K C I T Y !

We stretched stiff legs out of the car and walked across the sunny parking lot - exchanging excited glances. It was just as glorious as I had remembered from my last visit almost 10 years ago. We rushed past tourists buying bricks of fudge large enough to construct cocoa villages and quickly purchased our tickets. A quick go round the turn-style and there we were ..........the land of enchantment.

We walked for a while through trails and grottos, crevices that appeared too small to pass through and dark tunnels and overhangs, stopping here and there to see hemlock, sleeping white deer and the spellbinding bird trainer with hawk on hand and gasping children all around. We crossed bridges and valleys, curving pathways and tree shaded walks. Every now and then we stopped to giggle at music piped in through speakers made to look like boulders.

Along the trails, we met the same people over and over - the Japanese tourist who at each tiny little sign or overlook would ask us to take his photo with his son. Each time, they put their arms around each other with matched beaming smiles. We also got caught up (trapped really) in the opposite dynamic of an American tourist who at each tiny little sign of interest or awe from his young son, would have to stop and berate and belittle the child for each comment of fascination. We much preferred the Japanese version and I found myself picturing scenarios where the crew cut American father would slip and fall over embankments or perhaps become wedged between piles of rocks never to be discovered again. Mark and I would adopt the young son and fill his life with the joy that is miniature golf and dusty wax museums. We would live happily ever after, shielding him from the travesty of dippin' dots and network television.

We crossed the rope bridge where I fought my fear of heights and only looked ahead to the horizon, taking slow deliberate steps and ignoring a screaming banshee child who ran and shrieked, "don't look down!!! don't look down!!" and landed at Lover's Leap where we were told that we could "See Seven States!" I remembered seeing a photo of my grandparents at this exact spot 40 years earlier. I was disappointed to find that states aren't naturally marked as they are on maps with visible dividing lines and we moved on past "Old Stone Face" and the politically incorrect "Fat Man's Squeeze" .

We walked slowly through the "Rainbow Room" where windows covered in colored plastic allowed us to view the landscape as it might appear bathed in various primary colors including the red haze explosion that I imagined might follow an atomic bomb. We walked past the Japanese boy with his face plastered intently up against ruby colored glass. His father lingered behind asking a couple of ladies if they would like their photo taken. It was then that we reached the most divine of all the stops at Rock City. Fairyland Caverns. Yes. Oh, yes.

Oh my friends, how might I describe Fairyland Caverns so that it might receive the justice that it screams for with raging black lights and moonshine making gnomes?!

It all starts in underground caverns with layers and layers of glow-in-the-dark paint and walls and ceilings coated with fake glittering crystals. It goes even further with more gnomes than you can shake a stick at and fairyland scenarios with characters whose eyes and mouths seem to be cartoonishly large and misshapen, eyes rolling skyward towards an imagined sun that they will never see. Most of the characters seem to have been frozen for 70 years in mid-scream or state of shock or transgression. We walked amongst the cobwebbed vignettes, stopping to peek inside and declaring each one better than the last. We made our way around the couple arguing the difference between stalagmites and stalactites. Wide eyed children shuffled along with skin visibly losing pigmentation in the underground cavernous lair. Claustrophobic dads wondered aloud if they could light cigarettes. Road weary mothers promised gift shop trinkets in turn for good behavior from their offspring.

We walked happily past glow-in-the-dark children sleeping in wooden beds with scowling mouths unbeknownst to the fairies hovering over their heads (Barbie dolls wearing wings and tiny little tutus). Cinderella's coach turned into an iridescent orange pumpkin while she stared with bright florescent eyes at footmen turned to red-eyed scampering mice. Sleeping Beauty slept with glowing ribbon in hair while gnomes made to look like the seven dwarves stood helplessly by and watched her near-eternal rest while smoking tiny brown pipes.

At many turns in the tour we found ourselves face to face with identical gnomes forever frozen beside moonshine stills or in mid-swing on glowing wooden slatted swings. Some with tiny picks and shovels as if they had been trying to dig their way out into the sunlight. The gnome with the tiny little lantern looking like he was the most hopeful, perched closest to the entryway as if he almost made it out before time stood still. I remembered the lone gnome that Mark had spied through the quarter fare viewer up at the overlook. He sat on a rock alone deep down in the woods. I wondered if he had been fruitlessly waiting for the others to come all of these years. I laughed inward at my penchant for giving inanimate objects lives of their own and then thought that I saw one of the gnomes move out of the corner of my eye.

Soon after leaving the Fairyland Caverns, the tour leads to Mother Goose Village. Here we once again found ourselves underground in the dark - this time in a circular auditorium with a landscape of hills and valleys in the middle, each holding a different group of nursery rhyme characters. Yes...yes...also highlighted with black lights and bright rainbow paint. Strange, tinkling music played in the background. I couldn't decide if it was menacing or somehow magically fantastic. I hummed to myself to block it out.

A towering glowing castle sat in the middle of it all with spires touching dank wooden rafters and flags hanging limp without any hope of breeze. Here we walked like cattle around the circle, stopping to take photos of each strange character and scenario - Mark ever studious with his camera on slow exposure and me, ever the nonprofessional - skipping here and there like a five year old and snapping photos quickly while anxiously running ahead to see what was next in line. Lanky Jack Sprat dined with his fat chewing wife. The bow tied dish ran away with a screaming spoon. Mary's little lamb glowed brighter than a full moon with white coat that looked almost like it had been part of a farm radiation leak. Peter Piper's wife tried to escape through barred windows of her pumpkin shell cell while he sat on a rock nearby smiling a satisfied grin. Humpty Dumpty perched on his wall happily without any knowledge of his coming demise. The big bad wolf conspired against three of the pinkest pigs I have ever seen.

I had never before realized so thoroughly how tragic fairy tales and nursery rhymes generally are. When you throw in the added shock and awe that comes with black lights and shocking paint hues, and music that you can't block out even if you do hum Muskrat Love to yourself nonstop, the whole thing is a motley, rather nerve-wracking glimpse into the dark side of Story Land.

And we loved it!

With over 120 photos between us, we stumbled out into the bright sunlight and took refuge in the convenient location of the gift shop where we walked like zombies amongst pink unicorns and pet rocks, "SEE ROCK CITY" bumper stickers and coonskin caps, overpriced sweat shirts and snow globes and shot glasses containing plastic gnomes who had been clumsily epoxied inside by underpaid workers in China and Korea, miles away from the magical realms of this mountain top.

Immensely satisfied, we left Rock City and headed home. Or, that's how it started.

The journey home was going quite smoothly and even allowed leisure time to stop for photo ops at the lakeside rest stop containing the phallic worm statues and the space age ice cream vending machine. We talked to some children when their parents weren't looking. We lounged on the grass and cloud gazed. We saw the world's largest cat being walked on a leash. It was somewhere in the middle of the journey home that we hit the mother of all traffic jams. We crept along behind miles and miles of cars and eighteen wheelers, wishing for air conditioning and entertaining ourselves with jokes about the weary passengers in the cars around us. The car in front of us contained three Hispanic teenagers, a cooler, a thumping stereo system and a cage full of chickens. As anyone can understand, this did keep us entertained for quite some time but when we finally couldn't take the sitting anymore, Mark made the daredevil decision to drive up the on ramp.

"Up the on ramp" might also be a pretty apt way to describe the town of Jasper, Tennessee.

We figured that we would get out and stretch our legs for a while until the traffic subsided. We surveyed the area and saw that we had a few options to choose from - if we went one way the road ended a few yards ahead. If we went the other way - a steak house, a Hardee's, a motel and a giant fireworks store. Of course, we chose the fireworks store!

We loitered around inside as long as humanly possible, walking around between rows and rows of fireworks named for wartime weapons and venomous animals, watching anticlimactic video tapes of exploding fireworks and even purchasing over twenty dollars worth of cardboard monkeys driving flame shooting cars and pandas that promised to launch skyward with bright colorful sparks. While paying for the purchases, a scruffy teenager came in devouring a burrito. He reported that the traffic jam up ahead was due to a big wreck where a semi truck ran over a car. He exclaimed, "There's one dead and one a dying! " We all groaned and looked at each other. I stuck my head into the large paper sack containing the fireworks and snapped a photo.

Mark and I realized that we might just be in Jasper for a while and decided to find something to do to pass the time. I asked the teenage clerks what there was to do in the area. They looked at each other and started laughing. The boy with the burrito said that they usually hang out at the car wash. When they realized that we might not be the car wash loitering crowd, he recommended that we go to the WalMart or maybe to the bar down the road. The girl wearing a t-shirt that read "EXPLOSIVE" quickly looked us up and down and jumped in to the conversation and said that there was no way that we would make it out of the bar without threat of serious altercation. A light then seemed to come on in the boy's eyes and he said, "There's goats out there behind the motel."

"Goats!!", Mark shrieked. I bit my lip and wondered if maybe WalMart wasn't as bad as I remembered.

Before I knew it, we were traipsing past overflowing dumpsters and over grassy hills towards the Chet Atkins motel in the distance, looming like a guitar decorated Oz on the horizon. I mumbled, "poppies...poppies.." in my best sleepy voice but Mark didn't seem to notice. It was goats that he wanted. I slung my messenger bag over my shoulder and pushed my hair out of my eyes and followed him to the field behind the motel.

There was indeed a pen full of goats. Around the pen shuffled three little children making goat noises and shoving fistfuls of long grass through the openings. They honed in on us like flies on stink. Before long we were also attempting goat noises and having our hands licked and gobbled by goats. The smallest of the children disappeared every now and then and reappeared when least expected and announced his arrival by climbing our backs like we were trees. We shook him off like a snake shedding skin, looking around for his parents. Sooner or later, we met their mom and the family horse and then retreated for a rest in the shade with hands smelling like goats and little kid footprints on the backs of our legs.

We sat for hours on the grass behind the towering fireworks store, the sun catching the glittery starred letters in beautiful silver flashes. We had a perfect view of the miles of cars at a standstill down on the interstate and starlings congregating on broken spotlights. The sun began to fall and a few of the letters on the motel came on advertising, " T E L ". We had good conversation with bare feet resting in cool pasture and were only interrupted briefly by the children who wanted to show us their dogs - a spotted friendly brown one on a barely-held-back-by-boy rope and a little black terrier who I swore must have thought I had a head made out of steak.

I have to admit that I enjoyed sitting there, knowing that we couldn't go anywhere even if we tried. Making the best of what life had dished out for us. Being forced to just be in the moment. With goats and country children and bored teenagers surrounded by large fireworks with signs reading, "SOON TO BE ILLEGAL!" The wind shifting now and then filling our noses with the smells of roast beef and T-bone steaks and goat manure. It was my brand of perfection.

Around dark, we decided to go see what a Western Sizzlin' entails. Surrounded by famished families and friendly waitresses wearing shirts decorated with black and white spots and the words "MOO CREW", we were handed stacks of plates of various sizes. We then walked curiously between rows and rows of buffets, trying to figure out the plate system and what each deep metal container contained. Soon after, Kansas born Mark learned about the beauty of candied yams and I learned that ranch dressing shouldn't sit out for hours under spot lights. We laughed amongst chandeliers made of fake plastic antlers and restroom doors marked "Cowboys" and "Cowgirls" and watched more and more weary, trapped travelers coming inside for respite.

Sooner or later, the restaurant began to hand out maps to an alternate back road route out of Jasper. It was then that I realized that yes, there was a back route out of Jasper. We could have been home hours and hours ago. On the way out, we walked past the little goat girl standing beside her grass-stained mother at the bread buffet. She smeared huge spoonfuls of honey butter into bowls and onto her hands and wrists. She smiled up at me and Mark in recognition like we were old friends. We smiled back and told her goodbye.

We walked out of the restaurant with our little mimeographed directions in hand. Past the open grassy field and overflowing dumpsters. Past the red neon letters still advertising, " T E L " with crude goat pen hidden behind. Past the intense humming glow of the fireworks store with bored teenager sitting inside watching fireworks on video tape . I looked up at Mark and tried to stifle a wide smile but couldn't. Not for anything.

Morality plays

Something has replaced the bubble machine controversy in my sweet, sleepy little town.

A little something called Victoria's Secret. The headline in the newspaper read, "It's Hardly A Secret". The corresponding article told how Victoria's Secret has opened up after being closed for remodeling to a newer, bigger store complete with "scantily clad, lifelike mannequins".

The first quote was from the mom of six year old, Chase: "I shouldn't have to cover my son's eyes to walk into the mall."

Then we have the mother of a nine year old boy: "I told him that it was wrong and that I would explain to him when he got a little older why women wear that stuff. The more I thought about it, the madder I got. We're building the biggest churches here but we're representing our community this way?"

(sound of soapbox being pulled out from dark storage place, cobwebs being dusted off.)

The article then told how these mothers and several others have been networking through area churches asking people to call the mall office and the store to complain. The three women said they've shopped at Victoria's Secret before and have no problem with the merchandise - they just wish that the more revealing items were not displayed in the windows or at the store entrance.

(sound of one sneakered foot landing on box)

And the strangest quote of all comes from the same mother who covers her son's eyes when they enter the mall:

" They have all the kid things there: Santa and the Easter Bunny. I told them I won't come back to this store until they change it."

(sound of second sneakered foot landing on box and a quick cracking of the typing fingers)

Okay, so....it was killing me. I had to see it for myself. What slice of Sodom and Gomorrah had been dished up piping hot at the local Galleria? What had all of these moms dashing to cover children's eyes? What had set the church hotlines on fire? I packed up my camera and my little notepad and today on my lunch hour, I broke my rule against going into malls. I had to see what was what.

As I walked into the mall, I passed the sensible Talbots window displaying Summer-weight jumpers and the little kiosk for gourmet dog bones, the huge gumball machine and the guys hawking cell phones. I turned the corner and there it was - Victoria's Secret. The first thing that struck me was that they had finally gotten rid of their bright fuchsia and gold whorehouse color scheme. The store was now an elegant crème color with subdued lighting. I then walked past a mannequin in the window, arms raised above her head in a fashion only once reserved for girls who dance in cages, her bikini bottom complete with black fringe. Kapow!

I walked inside and the sales clerk met me with a smile and asked if she could help me.

I had instant flashbacks of the last time a Victoria's Secret sales clerk tried to "help" me. That instance ended with me sitting in a plush hot pink dressing room on a gold throne with mounds of bras around me (bras with names that sounded like strippers and small French dogs) while she consulted with her comrades on why nothing fit me. Should they add padding? One of those granny hook extenders in the back? They finally deducted (after waaay too many of them coming in the room with me to take a look) that I have large shoulders for a girl but only a moderate bust size. Holy brassieres, batman! Like I needed a bunch of sales clerks to tell me that....not since Junior High had I been so humiliated. They then committed the most cardinal of retail sins and told me that perhaps I should go to J.C. Penny's. They sent me to Penny's - the home of sensible bras for sensible women. They said they were sure that I would find just the right thing there.

That particular scenario ended with me in a bland manila Penny's dressing room with stained carpet, this time surrounded by sensible bras with cups large enough to fit my entire head - bras fashioned from sturdy fibers that I had a sneaking suspicion contained asbestos and fiberglass - bras with straps so wide that I was sure that my shoulders would collapse from the pressure of the sturdy space-age elastic bands.....

But...back to the story at hand. The sales clerk asked if she could help me. I had the above out of body flashback experience and then I said to her, "Um...not really. Hey...are those the mannequins that everyone is making such a fuss over?" I pointed out a couple including the Asian looking one crawling on her knees toward the pajama section like a kitten, with her hind end up in the air. She said that yes, those were the ones. We both laughed for a bit and talked about how people overreact about things like plastic mannequins wearing underwear. I then asked her if I could take some photos. Her eyes grew large and she said that there was no way that I could take photos. I asked her if I could sneak and take photos. She then told me that I could quickly take some from outside during which time she would "pretend" not to see me. She then asked me to please not tell anyone that she spoke to me.

Yikes. It had become a regular Pantygate up in there.

The scandal! The intrigue! The three for one panty deal!

So, I snapped some quick photos - with passersby looking at me like I was some sort of pervert or perhaps an art school drop out with a thing for underwear models. I then ducked back inside and thanked her for her patience with me. She offered me a membership in the Victoria's Secret Panty Club. I asked if there was a secret decoder ring. She said that sadly there was not. I left the mall wondering what members of a panty club do. I imagined that it is somehow more exciting than Oprah's book club but not nearly as annoying as the CD of the month club. I also wondered how actual living women could walk in that thong with feathers up the back without both insult and injury.

(sound of soapbox creaking from extended, wasted weight)

I would just like to interject a few thoughts on the whole debate. First, regarding the mother who said that she will explain to her nine year old son when he is "older" why women wear those sort of things. What on earth is she going to tell him? It scares me. These are underwear, for heaven's sake. And the thing that really gets me is that the women, these church members will freely admit that they have bought items from the store but at the same time, don't want their children to even know that such horrible, scandalous things exist. It is just bizarre to me.

I would like to insert a quote from my friend, Chance here:

"Just like Janet Jackson's boob, I would much rather have to explain this to my kid than Iraq."

I just don't understand why we as a society teach our children that things like our bodies and sexuality are wrong. Why parents want to pretend like things like underwear stores and sex education are the downfall of society. It's when we take normal, natural things (not including thongs with feathers in all the wrong places) that we make the same normal, natural things seem dirty and wrong. That is exactly what gets kids in trouble. They have no answers and all of the questions. If we take things and make them seem edgy and dark, then kids are going to want to go and find out the answers too soon. That mother who covers her kid's eyes when he walks past the store - he probably wouldn't think one thing about the display until she makes a big deal out of it. I just have to say that guidance and honesty and not censorship are the answers here.

Of course, I couldn't let this comment pass us by:

"We're building the biggest churches here but we're representing our community this way?"

When will people stop thinking that just because they build huge churches and fill them with well-dressed people, they have done their part to make society a better place? What do bigger churches have to do with anything? People starve and freeze to death in the shadows of big churches every day. It takes more than building a big, fancy church. It takes sometimes stepping outside of that church - stepping outside of the boundaries and questioning the gray areas. Not just being one of the sheep. Seeing when the old way isn't working anymore. Taking a new way.

The fact of the matter is that kids can't turn on the TV or go to a movie or open a magazine without being barraged with demeaning and unrealistic ideas and images. Our society - our media - will always overflow with such things. Like an oil spill slowly seeping towards the shore. We don't need to try and protect them. We can't possibly. We need to arm them with what they need to see past these things. We need to teach them that their bodies are sacred and that their own self esteem is worth more than society tells them that it is.

We don't need to teach our kids that they are wrong for having thoughts and feelings and questions.

And for the love of all that is good and holy, don't go bringing Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny into this. Haven't they suffered enough?

(stepping down and adjusting fallen bra strap)

Saturday....Saturday...Saturday night's alright...

Ahh...Sunday night. A purgatory of sorts. Caught in between the happy-go-lucky-full-of-possibility stance that is Saturday and the defeated posture that is the Monday morning realization that yes, I do have to work for a "living". Sighs and hail Mary's aside, this 11:28 finds me listening to a bootleg of Dexy's Midnight Runners' Come on Eileen (yes - on purpose) and eating curious ketchup flavored potato chips smuggled in from our Canadian neighbors to the North. To incorporate one of my favorite things (the condiment) with another of my favorite things ( food stuff deep fried in a vat of oil) is a beautiful, beautiful thing. We here in the little shotgun house rage on against tomorrow with salt and misunderstood but sung anyway vintage lyrics on our lips........

Once again, it was a good weekend. To those of you playing along at home, a "good weekend " to me means that more than once, I was able to cock my head to the side and say, "Well......will ya look at that...."

Head cock #1: I lost at miniature golf (something I never do) - thus killing my winning streak. But not before I over-exerted a swing thus hitting a woman two holes down with my golf ball and later watched a large woman trying to protect her shrieking child from a spider web by swinging a golf club into the air with absolute arachnid-induced malice and no regard to the safety of those around her. The scared child dropped and rolled like a log perhaps mistaking her elementary school fire safety training for something involving death by spiders instead. The spider climbed skyward as web unfurled. The crowd weaved and ducked under the shadows of a damaged fiberglass and wood lighthouse. A child no taller than a bird bath got a hole in one and didn't seem phased. As part of my losing bet, I am now supposed to sing "When you're a Jet.......you're a Jet..." complete with West Side Story finger snaps, footwork and jazz hands. I wish I had chosen something from Oklahoma instead. Seven Brides for Seven Brothers perhaps. Tommy?

Head cock #2: A friend and I walked into an ordinary looking basement bar while searching for food only to be assaulted with the musical stylings of a group of sixty something year old white men wearing Hawaiian shirts and moving in robotic motion while singing Brick House. In front of them throngs of women danced, being watched by men with slouchy backs and matching guts hanging over genuine leather, brass buckled belts with a khaki pant majority rule. They held their beers high in the air in a salute to Saturday nights and women who wear their Wonder bras to sports bars. Viva! ya'll.

We quickly retreated to the parking lot to the refrain of, "she's mighty...mighty...she's lettin' it all hang out..." after being told that we would have to pay a five dollar cover charge just to make fun of these people. Heck, we'd seen enough to make fun of them already. What did we look like? Suckers?

Head cock #2: Walking into a late-night Exxon station while still searching for food only to be dumbstruck by the sales clerk who seemed to have been waiting his entire life for just the right invitation to tell his marvelous story.

We walked in and picked out doughnuts from the Krispy Kreme display and a two liter coke and then approached the counter (Yes. My name is Kelly and I am held together with preservatives). While I tried to convince the sales clerk that I really did mean to buy a Coke when Pepsi is cheaper, my friend became awestruck with a display of giant lighters on the countertop. They measured in slightly smaller than a bread box at around 6" x 9 ". As my friend tried unsuccessfully to light one of the enormous lighters using both hands, he asked the sales clerk if it actually had lighter fluid in it.

Well, that did it. A light came on in the clerk's eyes and he said, "We ain't allowed to keep lighter fluid......flame-ables......in here." He then grinned under a strange top lip that I couldn't take my eyes off of ( more of a lumpy curled up bit of flesh than a lip - one tooth sticking out like a white flag in a dental defeat). Both myself and my friend were content with that answer and before I could ponder the way he pronounced "flammables", he raised his eyebrows and added, "We can't keep lighter fluid in here because.......I'm...a..... convicted arsonist."

I heard angels singing.

My friend nodded politely and shifted from one foot to the other. I realized that the weekend was winding down and I hadn't yet had my weekly odd weekend conversation with someone from an alternate lifestyle/ gene pool / frame of reference/ state of mind. I leaned in and said, "Oh? Really? A convicted arsonist? What'd you do??"

Hook, line and sinker....

He then wiggled his eyebrows as if to say, "You may worship me now."

My friend still man-handled the lighter and I stared with wide-eyed interest at the sales clerk while watching same friend trying to get a light in my peripheral vision, waiting to see a gigantic flame go up to the ceiling in a Hiroshima-style mushroom explosion, perhaps taking out the Funyons "back to school" display. He finally gave up and put down the lighter and stepped forward into the conversation, trying to get the hostage doughnuts out of the nether-world that I had jauntily fox-trotted us into.

The excited clerk rubbed his sweaty palms on the fronts of his pants, tucked his wrinkled shirt further down into his pants with jerking, spastic tucks and told us a winding story that seemed to be pieced together with things he had seen on Cops or perhaps even from flashbacks of memories in between injurious meltdowns at the meth lab.

He told us that when he was a teenager, a man paid him to burn down his barn. Fair enough. Well.....according to the clerk , he got all of the burning permits and came to burn down the barn. So, apparently the barn burning turned more into a barn explosion and the sheriff's deputies came and found out that they didn't have what the clerk called, "a TNT license". Boom! ya'll.

"A TNT license!", I yelled back at him to keep the momentum going.

He then started laughing like a little kid and told us how he had brought dynamite to take down the barn. Took it down good too. According to him, instead of going to jail, the judge made him enlist in the boy scouts and there he had to stay until he was 18. I then smiled and asked him if he successfully got his "campfire" badge. He giggled at me and leaned forward, hands on the counter. The lippish part of his mouth quivered and glistened with spittle. His eyes darted from me to the giant lighters and then to my friend standing beside me defeated and bored, having abandoned any idea of seeing flames of any kind, tortured with long stories about them.

My friend then broke the magical spell, picked up the doughnuts from the counter and bid the fellow farewell and started towards the door. I clutched my dusty two liter Coke and hesitantly followed as the clerk yelled puzzle pieces of information at us as we left, trying to draw us back into his labyrinth:

"We'd get up there in the woods!"

"We always made sure we had railroad ties!!"

"Railroad ties are covered in tar!"

"Tar burns like coal !! Like coal! "

When we got in the car, I stared back inside at the clerk and then grabbed my notebook and feverishly started looking for a pen. My friend looked at me and said, "What was with his lip?" I remarked that it would be mean for us to talk about his lip. He then asked me, "Didn't you notice his lip?" I said that I did but it would just be mean to talk about it. He asked, "Yeah....but that fleshy bit there on top...was that gum or was it lip?"

We went home and sat on my front porch in the quiet dark and ate doughnuts and sipped our drinks and talked about the lip/gum configuration a little more - never really coming to any conclusion. In the street in front of us, a police car drove in reverse down the road. Somewhere across town, a convenience store clerk surrounded by prepackaged triangle cut sandwiches and cigarette cartons felt like a pyromaniac god. Just blocks away people with no right to boogie down just kept on boogieing down. Perhaps a little tribute to Rick James was done and things got super freakyaaaw. Colored light bulbs continued to burn out turning miniature golf holes into guessing games. Somewhere a potato chip maker pondered the tartar sauce flavored chip. One never knows really. One never knows.

"How I learned to stop worrying and love the bomb"

"Obviously, I think they're going badly for the soldiers who lost their lives, and I weep for that person and their family. But no, I think we're making good progress."

-- George W. Bush, answering a question on how he thought the "post-war" efforts were going


"You do not see the river of mourning because it lacks one tear of your own."

-- Antonio Porchia

Two days in Memphis

Part One: This is Tom Bodett saying, "We'll leave the red light on for ya.."

This past weekend, with dreams of TV appearances and appraisals that would make us richer than our wildest dreams, Andy-not-my-brother and I set out for The Antiques Road Show in Memphis. We headed South with a stocked cooler, the ever growing jukebox that is his Ipod and the ever growing hard-drive killer that is my digital camera. And of course......my notebook and pen. He, driving like a race car driver and me, clutching the seat and hitting imaginary brakes from time to time and unsuccessfully trying to stifle banshee screams that could have raised the dead.

We stopped briefly in Jackson, Tennessee - the final home of Carl Perkins, and the location of a promised country buffet. Our first stop....or actually, a snail's pace drive-by...was the home of the late Mr. Perkins. I found it a little sadly ironic that we were visiting there on the way to Memphis (where I'm surprised that you don't find Elvis on the five dollar bill). I took in the sprawling ranch with huge black guitars flanking each of the wide doors, and the neatly manicured front lawn. I craned my neck to see the swimming pool in the back and Andy told me that he had once seen Carl taking the trash out without his toupee. I tried to imagine him without his hair but never could.

We headed to the buffet restaurant which was housed in a large building resembling a barn. Painted pigs wearing lipstick and polka dotted dresses welcomed us inside and we sat by a river view, surrounded by elderly couples while we stuffed ourselves with Southern deep fried delicacies and more items from the bread group than the food pyramid would ever condone. I will admit to squealing when I saw a deep buttery vat of chicken and dumplings. It slipped from my throat before I could stop it. As I licked the edges of a bowl of banana pudding, I looked at Andy and wished that I had his metabolism, and then looked around the room at all of the bowling pin shaped women. I pushed my plates aside and we hit the road for the final leg of the trip to Memphis. I prayed to the Gods of clogged arteries and cellulite and swore to never eat again if they would spare me this one buffet transgression.

With the Ipod on random play, the music moved strangely yet seamlessly from Django Reinhardt to Def Leppard. Andy informed me that he was now going close to 100 miles an hour. I agreed that the car had a smooth ride and clutched the seat and sang along to the stereo while wondering if my organ donor card was still in my wallet. I closed my eyes and he played air drums on the steering wheel as we careened into the night. I wondered if I had remembered to finish my will and if my parents would know that Sam is supposed to get Bill Monroe's toaster if I die and if they would believe that the items in my top dresser drawer are just being held for a friend. We arrived in Memphis pretty late and began to search for the motel. After some time, Andy remarked that the motel "might be in a questionable area". I wondered again about my donor card and the toaster and the top drawer and also if I had left dirty laundry on the floor at home for my relatives to find. I also wondered how long Andy had been waiting to tell me about his doubts on the location of the motel. Had he stared at me as I swooned over the dumplings, wanting to tell me but not wanting to spoil what might be one my happiest moments?

After a while, we found our motel and Andy went inside to check us in. I sank down in the seat to give the illusion that he was the only one using the room (we're nothing if not sneaky and thrifty). I peeked out over the edge of the door frame and watched two men scuffling and arguing at the front door. Beyond them, I could see Andy and the desk clerk. I looked around at the run-down cars in the parking lot. I sank back down in my seat and checked the door locks. The place didn't feel all that safe and the words "questionable area" rattled around in my head like rocks in a can. He came back to the car and after a brief conversation about the two men, we drove down to find our room.

On the way, we passed groups of people congregating in the parking lot, on balconies and in the hallways. As Andy parked the car, I headed up to the room. I walked up the stairs hauling my suitcase and a banjo ( for the Road Show) past a woman who eyed me up and down suspiciously. I gave her a nervous grin as she pulled her child who had been watching Andy away from the balcony and said to him, "That ain't nothin'...that's just a white man..." I quickly unlocked the door and went inside. Andy soon followed. We put down our luggage and closed the curtains, sat down on the foot of the bed and gave each other matched raised eyebrows as we listened to yelling from outside the door.

We both admitted that the motel seemed really shady and that the looks that we got from the other patrons set both of us ill at ease. It was obvious that we didn't fit in. But, it was late and we were tired. And we were now in Memphis. I rechecked the door locks and began the cleanliness inspection ( I am a true joy to travel with - trust me. Dateline NBC ain't got nothin' on me. ) The bathroom looked pretty okay and I moved to phase two, jerking the bed covers back and then shrieking that the sheets hadn't been changed since the last guests. I must have been really, really tired because all it took was Andy remarking, "I've got a revelation for ya....not ALL curly hairs are pubic hairs.." He then shook out the sheets and we settled in for the night. I had been defeated even before I pulled the black light out of my travel bag.

Since neither of us wanted to go back outside we decided to forego the amenities like the swimming pool and the ice machine. Telling ourselves that fresh linen was just a needless luxury, we turned on a movie and cranked up the volume to a level that blocked out all of the voices and squealing car tires outside. I periodically eyed the door locks and took turns biting through my lip and swallowing hard.

The movie had Japanese dialogue but it really didn't matter as it seemed that the motel was also in the direct flight pattern of the airport. Every so often, a plane flew over, rattling the walls and sounding like it was about to land on the bed. We watched the Japanese movie with Spanish subtitles (our only choices were French and Spanish and we realized that it is the American thing to do to shun the French) and spent the evening huddling on the bed, trying to remember high school Spanish (I offered up "queso" and "loco" but that didn't get us very far) and making jokes about what kinds of critters were probably living in the blankets. Just the talk of it made us itch and we took turns scratching what we hoped were imaginary itches and twitching at every sound outside the door.

Around 1:00, we drifted off to sleep - but only briefly. The noises from the parking lot went on all night. People screaming. Yelling. Running. Doors slamming. Car tires squealing. Car alarms shrieking. Footsteps outside of our door. Every time the air conditioner kicked on, we bolted upright in bed thinking that we had just been shot. Every new noise in the hallway made us whisper to the other, " Did you hear that?? What was that??!!" It was absolutely awful. The whole night was spent listening to the sounds from outside, waiting on the door to get busted in and feeling the reverb of passing planes. We knew that we might be in over our heads....but what were we going to do? Leave? Walk out in the parking lot - just the two of us - the couple with the banjo and the Cezanne etching? Andy loaded down with every new electronic gadget known to man and me with a wallet full of twenties reserved for greasy spoons and miniature golf bets? So, we waited.......... tossed and turned..... and grabbed tiny increments of sleep before being shocked awake by each new disturbance. It was a bonding experience. Something to laugh about later, we reasoned (if we didn't have our voice boxes cut out by bandits)....

At daylight, the parking lot grew curiously silent and we managed to get in a quick cat nap and a shower before loading up all of our stuff into the car (afraid to leave so much as a toothbrush in the room). Over breakfast, we wondered if the previous night had been a dream. Behind sleepy eyes, I promised that it had not. After breakfast, we visited a vintage store where Andy bought a globe and made small talk with the owner. She asked him where we were from and where we were staying. He told her which motel we had booked and I saw her eyes grow as large as one of the colorful Melmac saucers that she displayed on her shelves. I walked up to the counter with a pair of pink Mary Janes.

"You're not...." she said with the color draining from her already pale face. Her voice trailed off as she wrung her hands. We told her that yes, we were and then recounted our night to her like little children who had just seen an exciting cop show on TV. She then told us that no matter what, we were not to go back to that motel. She then told us that it is one of the two roughest motels in Memphis and is mostly used by prostitutes and drug dealers and buyers. She then told us that there are constant stories in the news of tourists booking there by mistake only to be roughed up and robbed. I shuffled from foot to foot as Andy and I both chimed in, "but we've already paid for both nights...." She looked at us like she was looking at a penny-pinching train wreck about to happen.

When Andy went out to the car, she pleaded with me, "You were lucky last night. Don't try it again tonight. I don't care what you have to do. Cut your losses. Lose money if you have to. You can not spend another night there. Do it for your parents. Your parents would thank you for not going back there."

I once again searched my mind and remembered that yes, I had left dirty clothes on the floor at home. Tons and tons of dirty clothes. And probably unfinished letters of support to the Communist Party and my diary declaring my love for Regis Philbin open on my night stand. I had to make it home alive.

Andy and I briefly discussed our options and then drove back to the motel. He successfully got us out of the second night while I once again sank low in the passenger seat outside. He said that when he was handed the cancellation form, he decided to leave the section marked, "Reason for Cancellation" blank. I still think that he should have put, " I'm too young to die" or perhaps "Not a big fan of my heart bursting from my chest." As we drove away from the motel, I watched a woman on precariously high heels walking down a hall and heard children splashing in a pool veiled by thick, overgrown shrubbery and thought about the people who don't have the option of leaving such a place.

Part Two: The Road Show

We had to wait in line for a couple of hours but it wasn't too bad. We were both sleepy but getting our second wind. All around us were lines and lines of people with interesting and odd things to have appraised. Everyone eyed what each other had brought and made low comments under their breath like, "Can you believe he brought that ?" or "What is that thing any way ?"

I think the funniest thing that we saw had to be the guy carrying a gleaming Nazi sword in a Pottery Barn bag.

We met up with a girl who asked us where we were staying. Without any prodding, she too blurted out that we couldn't be serious. We nodded and started to tell our story in unison like we had just made it through an initiation into a cruel Motel 6 Club. We also promised her that we would be staying elsewhere that night. We exchanged glances that seemed to say, "Can you believe this?"

We had our items appraised and still think that the appraisers must have been hepped up on goof balls as neither one of us got on TV or had items appraised at hundreds of thousands of dollars. We did have an elderly woman with a digital camera stop us and take our photo with our items. She said that she was with the Germantown News. So, I guess....in a way.....we made it. We are media darlings now. People looked at us as she snapped our photo with her press pass swinging around her neck. I could just tell that they were thinking that we were somebody. And we were. We were the couple who survived a night in Hell's Kitchen (or at least it's breakfast nook) and were now standing surrounded by some of the richest, whitest people in all of Memphis. Andy made the observation that though Memphis is one of the cities with the highest poverty and the most minorities, neither was represented in this room of towering antique armoires and delicate vases handed down by wealthy blue-haired Aunts.

Part Three: There but by the grace of god / Contrasts like night and day, black and white

That night, we had dinner and played miniature golf and then returned to a peacefully quiet (yet a more expensive) motel room. We both smiled beneath clean sheets and laughed that we hadn't once double checked the door locks. We slept soundly and then the next day went to the park and had a picnic. At the park, on one side of us were two mothers with their brood of children and on the other side, a homeless man slept on top of a picnic table. At one point, one of the mothers cracked a snide remark to her children about the homeless man. Andy and I openly cringed at her insensitivity. Later on, another man dug through the trash can looking for food. One of the children from the table went up to him and gingerly offered him a sandwich and a bottle of water. The man took them and thanked the child and sat on a granite wall and ate it in quick bites with his head held low. Small birds pecked for crumbs underneath the vacant tables. We sat with the sun on our backs and a full picnic basket and felt fortunate, my notebook full of notes on the contrasts of two days in Memphis.