""Someday This Will All Be Yours"

FRED SANFORD

I been hearing how if the Arctic Ice cap melts that there will be 3 feet of water in London and Miami. That really sounds like bullshit to me. The oceans are huge! But I just read some interesting things about Antarctica; how it contains 90% of the ice on earth which dwarfs the arctic ice cap; why it stays so much colder down there because there are no other land masses close by and elevation; and how huge chunks are falling off it the size of Connecticut.
They say if it melts the oceans will rise 16 feet! That sounds like bullshit too, but I ain't so great with numbers
Who is to say that this would be due to Global Warming? Who is to say it is not? Who is to say we can't have a perfectly good planet without either Ice Cap for a while, albeit without Adele's Penguins and Polar Bears?
Who is against advancing energy technology as a profitable industry that reduces greenhouse gasses, just on the basis that we can, and that we will because its cleaner, cheaper or more efficient?
Who wants to open their windows and turn on the A/C?
Who wants to pour a hot chocolate on the perennially frozen Lake Vostok?
Who really wants to go to Antarctica and paint Gang Graffiti on the Ross Ice shelf?

I sometimes imagine how primitive we might look to an advanced being from Outer Space; we are still digging rocks out of the earth and setting them afire for energy, and drilling holes in the crust to extract one of the messiest and most dangerous substances in the world and pushing it around through pipes and over seas risking spill and fire and explosion. There may be better technologies to work on and discover if we want.
But I'm not really trying to say anything here, except that its always sunny in Philly,  and it never rains in northern California.

Image courtesy of "This Isn't Happiness"

ZOO

...a poem written for writer's block by Colin Ryono
ZOO
Please don't tap on the glass,
or throw things through the bars.
They don't appreciate your attention.
Really.
Feeding time changes regularly.
So don't ask.
And they don't do tricks and they don't even hear you.
So don't ask.
Pay no attention when, like animals in a cage
(dumb animals),
they pace back and forth, for what seems like hours.
This is perfectly normal.
They could lash out at any moment.
Or worse, they could lose their train of thought,
they could forget the word they were trying to think of,
or realize that that line doesn't really work at all.
And this would be a minor tragedy.
Let's move on now to the next cage
where we have a female who thinks she's a novelist.

CAUGHT UP IN THE WORLD

I'm so sorry to see this happening. When I heard you say "My life is over" I just wanted to cry because I remember how that feels. I know that while you and she were going together I kept trying to find something wrong with you. But I couldn't. There is nothing wrong with you at all, you are a good guy, but marriage is a difficult thing and life gets really complicated and the older you get the bigger the problems get and the more full of the world you become. And I know you are missin' that dog too, she took the dog. Outside of that one message I sent you long ago I've tried to stay out of this. I'm not up there, I have no idea what has been going on other than she has been miserable and couldn't seem to fit in with the household, and you said someone is crazy and I don't know so I can't say. And I don't know if you can get her back or not, all you can do is try to show you care, if you still do, and how much you care, because I can tell you that girls demand that you care about them more than anything else in the world and that's a hard thing to do sometimes when you get caught up in the world the worlds not getting any wider and things get so thick around a man; I've had my heart broke a lot, usually because I forgot how to show that I care, ; and then when they were gone and I realized just how much I really did care, and I never dreamed how was I to know it could be that way; and then it was too late and the world stepped in and I couldn't be trusted to care anymore. You are a good kid, I like you. Win back her trust, man, its not over unless you just give up and don't try.


Or try to make it all about dogs.

BREAKFAST COOKS

THEY ARE THE WORST...(CLICK HERE)

Reminds me of this...."Three Bags Full"

GOBLESS AUNT LERA

Aunt Lera is the last one left of the four sisters. Lera is 97 years old, still crappie fishes and plays bridge 4 days a week (a Grand Master I believe), has had three bypasses, still smokes a pack a day and seems to be able to dare the Devil and win. She suffers no fools and pulls no punches. She is a kind and Christian woman, in a Joyce Myers kind of way.
Just don't get on her wrong side.
I can remember when I was a kid that somehow I had had a key made for her car after my parents had started watching the mileage on theirs rather closely, and on Saturday nights during the summer of 1971 I would slide noiselessly out the back door and walk to Lera's car, then meet up with my other 14 year old pals in the middle of the night, and we would joy ride and smoke Swisher Sweets and I knew of a certain window that if you knocked on it at 2 a.m. a couple 14 year old chicks would come crawling out, and its off to Devils Backbone to make out.
When finally I was caught and had to give the key back to Lera and try to explain what the heck I was doing with a key for her car, I don't rememeber anything except her bright and burning blue eyes and pursed lips. It was the eyes, eyes that blazed and could have melted steel with their intensity.
Anyway, I talked to Lera on the phone last night. I told her how well I am doing, and how great it is to be clean and sober for two and a half years.
'We tried to tell you" she shrieked over the phone.
So then I told her about my son, about the way he struggles with addiction too, and how he has been in and out of a few Rehabs, and jail too, and that when he gets out this next time he will have 5 months clean and hopefully he will work a program of recovery, and I saw him this weekend and he sounds real good.
"He's just like you, yes he sure enough is"-her shrill voice sounds almost pleased to say it.
Then she asks about my sister Lisa, and I can't help it, I have come this far I may as well tell the truth:
"Well, Lisa, she isn't doing so well. She is having some bouts with Multiple Sclerosis, thats what they think it is, and Fibromyalgia too, and of course her allergies are bad, and she hurt her foot and she has had to take a Disability leave from work, and she has all these symptoms and its hard to tell sometimes what is real and whats in her mind".
Lera didn't fire right back, there was a moments pause, and I thought for just a second that maybe, just maybe Lera might cut Lisa some slack. But no. I could almost see the blue eyes ablaze, just like the day I handed back her car key as she cackled out the words:
"She has always been that way"

And she is perfectly right too, lisa has always been that way. Anyway, I love Lera I do, and she can't help that she has gotten very old, and that she knows us all so well, or that she doesn't favor changing her voice and demeanor just to pander to us kinfolk. She's a one of a kind, and I hate to think her days are numbered; she has been dying from the same heart attack for 30 years. She is a woman of strength and faith, and she know her mind and I'll miss knowing she is out there.
Gobless Aunt Lera.

AN AWESOME LIST

of things "not properly scorned by the majority" including but not limited to "Tribal tattoos on Westerners, hairy fruit, the Monogamy Myth" and "sticky hands" can be found here (click).

ASTONISHED TO HEAR ONLY LOVE

I wrote a really long 6 part story about my Dad and Alzheimers a few years back. Over the weekend I got a comment from someone I don't know that takes care of their parent with Alzheimers. People affected by this disease and people blessed to have the priviledge and responsiblity of caring for them in particular or the elderly in general have a special place in my heart. I found this poem a while back and would like to share it here and now. Its called "The Guardian" by Joseph Mills, and its for all of you caregivers.... Past, Present and Future.
The Guardian
I don't think my brother realized all
the responsibilities involved in being
her guardian, not just the paperwork
but the trips to the dentist and Wal-Mart,
the making sure she has underwear,
money to buy Pepsis, the crying calls
because she has no shampooeven though
he has bought her several bottles recently.

We talk about how he might bring this up
with the staff, how best to delicately ask
if they're using her shampoo on others
or maybe just allowing her too much.
"You only need a little, Mom," he said,
"Not a handful." "I don't have any!"
she shouted before hanging up.
Later he finds a bottle stashed in her closet
and two more hidden in the bathroom
along with crackers, spoons, and socks.
Afraid someone might steal her things,
she hides them, but then not only forgets
where, but that she ever had them at all.

I tease my brother,
"You always wanted another kid."
He doesn't laugh. She hated
her father, and, in this second childhood,
she resents the one who takes care of her.
When I call, she complains about how
my brother treats her and how she hasn't
seen him in years.
If I explain everything he's doing,
she admires the way I stick up for him.
Doing nothing means I do nothing wrong.

This is love's blindness and love's
injustice. It's why I expect to hear anger
or bitterness in my brother's voice, and why
each time we talk, no matter how closely
I listen, I'm astonished to hear only love.

PIDGEON FORGE TENNESSEE

"As our recovery progressed we became increasingly aware of ourselves and the world around us. Our needs and wants, our assets and liabilities were revealed to us. We came to realize we had no power to change the outside world, we could only change ourselves."

"MORE WILL BE REVEALED" ~N.A. Basic Text

Image by my cousin Khim Perkins, Smoky Mountains~ Tennessee

NIVEN'S LAW

‎"There exist minds that think as well as you do, but differently"

OMG

I do love me some Pancakes!
Even little 'ol Hospital Pancakes!

THE 10th STEP

"We continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong, promptly admitted it."
 For 30 days in a row I am supposed to fill out this whole long list of 31 questions designed to make me reflect on my day and illuminate the positive and negative things in my life. I have to tell you the truth- after five days I have just about had it with these questions. I really don't have that much going on in my life.

There are days I just go to work, and go home, and watch Antiques Roadshow and fix a little supper and turn on "Saving Private Ryan" and fall asleep before they let that Nazi bastard go at the Radio Tower, and then I wake up and call my friend Susan, and frankly I haven't had enough interaction with people to have harmed anybody or been wrong about any thing important. So I thought I'd share what I wrote last night as answers to some of the 31 questions I have to answer for the next 25 days.

The first two: Am I clean today? Yes How have I acted differently? I don’t know
Now the previous four days, I answered the shit out of those questions, I just about wrote a book,  but I'm running out of material here.
 Then:
Was today a good day? yes
Was I happy? yes
 Was I serene? Yeah, except for having to fill out this dipshit list
Because I really had nothing to report, ya know?

Moving right along to #18:
 Did I worry about yesterday or tomorrow? No, I didn’t! I forgot to worry! But I’m about to start dreading filling this shit out tomorrow.

Which segued real nice to this:
Did I allow myself to become obsessed by anything today? Damn right. The 10th Step. I’m ate up with it. They should let me rewrite these fucking questions. I'm starting to suspect that deep inside I'm a real grouch.
But maybe the most telling were towards the bottom of the whole long list:
Have I done anything to cause harm to myself or to another today? Not yet.
If so, what? I might eat this list.
Am I willing to change today? If I have to.
Did I pray or meditate today? Yes
How did this affect my life? Maybe not as much as one would like to think

So there you have it, Day Five of my 10th Step.

I GAINED A POUND

After two weeks of my diet I went and weighed in with that nice soft smart woman, my Nutritionist. I gained a pound. but that's OK, because the have been single days that I have gained 5 pounds after going on a binge. And I didn't binge this last two weeks, not until the last night before weigh in. The Nutritionist asked me what happened and I explained:



"Wow, man, Doc, I don't know what came over me. Whatever signal the brain gives that says I'm full just didn't happen. It began at lunch when I had a Chef Salad and a piece of garlic bread. Within 15 minutes I was starving to death, so had a glass of water and two rice cakes. 20 minutes after that and my belly was growling, so I had 2 pears, a granola bar and a can of Tuna. I managed to get through work on that, but on the way home Sonic was calling my name for a Malt and Burger and Tater-tots, but just kept a beeline straight to my apartment where I blackened a couple-of-few pork chops"
She stopped me "A coupla-what?"
"A couple-of-few"
'Whats a "Couple-of-few" she asked.
"About seven."
I think my Nutritionist, after I thought I had offended her our first meeting, I think maybe she is starting to get me. She was laughing out loud now and says:
"You ate seven pork Chops?"
"Might have been eight, I don't know, I was out of control, and still dyin' for that Sonic Malt, Burger and Tater Tots. but I managed Doc, I managed, I admitted I was powerless and turned to my Higher Power to restore me to sanity. And so in order to keep from walking out that door and going to Sonic I did the only thing left to do....
"Which was?"
"I took off all my clothes, I stripped down to nuthin', grabbed a book and sat on the couch, bare-beamed and buck naked and read "Love in the Time of Cholera" knowing full well that as long as I didnt get dressed I would be OK"

Well, she's crackin' up pretty bad now, enough that my Doctor, the one with the one happy eye and the loppyjaewed other eye, he sticks his head in the door and I have to tell the whole story again.
'Are you the guy that drove his motorcycle into the lobby out there a couple of years ago?" he asked.
"No, Doc" I replied "I'm the guy that rode his bicycle 6 miles to get here and collapsed in the lobby from diabetic shock. I'll never forget doc, you put me on the couch and said you wanted me to go to the Emergency Room and I said "I don't think I can make it any further on my bike" and you insisted that I not even try and called the ambulance. I liked you ever since Doc"

So anyway, this is what happened at my second Nutritionist appointment where I gained a pound.

DATING ADVICE FOR UF MIKE

I have two pick up lines, Mike. One of them is a bit of a panacea and can be used numerous times throughout a relationship, including as an introduction. They work in all sorts of situations, whether she is upset and crying or happy and laughing or sitting by the fire in a romantic mood.
The first is:
"You look like you could use some chocolate baby"The second one is more direct, yet indirect at the same time, which is a beautiful thing. Lets say she's sitting there, looking good, and you say "excuse me" and go to the restroom or to get a couple beers from the fridge. When you come back, and she is still sitting there, probably dangling one of her shoes off her toe (which they say is a good sign, a very good sign) all you have to do is say:
"You are going to have to excuse me just one more time"
and that's when you jump her.
And even if on the off-chance she doesn't go for it, she can't accuse you of having no manners.
Or passion.
And women they like passion, even more than chocolate.

But I have to tell you Mike, dating is a pain in the butt, and girls are as finicky a critter as you will ever come across. I seem to have a lot of girlfriends, and they all show up at the same place at one time, and really they are just friends and the best kind too, but every now and then one will say to me:
"So-and-so asked me if you and I are dating. What should I tell them?"
And I've found after many years of this thing the best answer:
"You just tell 'em Steve dont date. Wanna go get some Chocolate?"

MARK TWAIN

“I was always told that I was a sickly and precarious and tiresome and uncertain child, and lived mainly on allopathic medicines during the first seven years of my life.
I asked my mother about this, in her old age—she was in her 88th year—and said:
‘I suppose that during all that time you were uneasy about me?’
‘Yes, the whole time.’
‘Afraid I wouldn’t live?’
After a reflective pause-ostensibly to think out the facts:
‘No—afraid you would.’
It sounds like plagiarism, but it probably wasn’t.”
From the Ken Burns Documentary "Mark Twain" on PBS...no one does it up like Ken Burns 'cept maybe Sam Clemens.

FULL MOON OVER COWTOWN

FORT WORTH TEXAS, COURTESY OF LEX LOPEZ PHOTOGRAPHY

THE GALLOWS POLE

JD was a Straightedger back before there was even such a thing, and I had a gallon of some really rank Mushroom Tea that he was quite interested in. He and I had a friendship based on Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath and King Crimson and the fact that JD had a cute little sister who, given a year or two, was going to be really something. But for a straight guy, JD dug the shit out of trippy music. We'd put on Master of Reality and I'd tell him:
"Dude, this music is so good with the Microdot"
and he'd just shake his head "no"; or we'd be listening to "Dark Side of the Moon" and that part would come on where it sounds like a dude is trying to get away from a helicopter and its so realistic when you're stoned you almost need seat belts and a barf bag, and I'd look over at JD and offer him a toke and he'd just shake his head.
I wonder how do you listen to that shit straight? Now that I'm clean, maybe I should try it one time. I'm afraid I won't like it, that the child will be grown and the dream gone, and my whole sordid past will have been in vain.

But back to the gallon of Mushroom Tea. It had been in my trunk for about a week. I started hittin' on it pretty hard early Friday evening when I ran into JD. We went down to Devils Backbone and cranked up the tunes and he gazed at the jar. His curiosity finally got the best of him right in the middle of "Gallows Pole". I was trippin pretty good, and he says:
"I might try some of that."
"No shit JD! Its about time!" and I handed him the jar.
But poor JD, he raised the jar to his lips and took this baby sip, amde a bitter beer face and spewed it out all over the place.
"Oh, that shit is NASTY!" he says.
"Thank you" I said, because I had made it.
"No really, that shit is foul" he says.
"I know! Ain't it great!" and I took the jar and tipped it back and took a huge belt off it, singin':

"Brother, I brought you some silver, yeah.
I brought a little gold, I brought a little of everything
To keep you from the Gallows Pole.
Yes, I brought you to keep you from the Gallows Pole."

Well, it was pure torture for JD, because he finally got the courage to do some shit, but now he couldn't get past the taste and smell.
I kept tellin' him how great it would be, and I kept showing him how to just blast it past his tongue and down his gullet, and he just kept taking baby sips and spewing it out and I'd tell him "I'm going to put it up" and I'd go open my trunk, and he'd say "Let me try again" and this went on all the way around till the 8Track tape was back on the Gallows Pole and the end result is I've never been so fucked up my whole long life.

"Ah-ha-ha
Swingin'
Swingin' on the gallows pole!
See-saw marjory daw
See-saw knock at my door
Swingin' from the Gallows Pole"

GRAPE NUTS FREAK

I met Euell Gibbons, the guy that said "Ever eat a pine tree? Many parts are edible." and could turn a swamp into a Health food store with free merchandise. I was 17 and I said to him "I am a Grape Nuts Freak" and he signed me his autograph "To a fellow Grape Nuts Freak" and he even took a bite out of the paper he signed it on, the way he did the wooden plaque Sonny and Cher presented him with one time.
He was really cool for an old guy.

NOAH'S ARK DAY

I see where the world is to end May 21st, 2011. A Bible Scholar, Harold Campbell, has it figured out now. He had it figured out way back in 1994 too, but apparently his calculations were off a bit and he went back to the drawing board and now its going to be May 21st, 2011.
For real, for real dude. I seriously doubt he would make the same mistake twice.
It all makes perfect sense because it was May 21st 1946 that Louis Slotkin got fatally irradiated "Ticking the dragons tail" at the Demon Core at Los Alamos Nuclear Testing facility.
Plus its exactly 7000 years since Noah loaded up the Ark. I don't know why we havent been celebrating that one all along.
Noah's Ark Day! What a great holiday that would be! There could be parades, and floats and special rates at the Zoo. There could be Water Balloon fights, and they could get the Fire Department to hose everyone down with hoses! And if it rains, man, wouldn't that be special! There might be men selling Ice Cream, singing Italian songs,
(unintelligibe)
Can you dig it? Yes I can!

I got to put it down on my calendar...except...its too late to celebrate Noahs Ark Day!
Its the end of the world!
That really pisses me off.

DUNE

“I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings over total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain. ”
Frank Herbert

I read the book so long ago, and it is this passage that sticks to me. I used to tell it to my daughter, paraphrased and in so many words, when she would get upset.

CALAMITY

"The extremity of our willingness, usually inspired by great pain, makes us able to see beyond the present pain brought on by our poor choices. There is random calamity in the world and we acknowledge that. But we have no power over calamity. We have terrific power over our individual, personal lives. When we totally surrender and learn to live better, it is we who immediately feel the relief. The calamity will have to go on without us."

"IF YOU FULL O' PIE, DON'T EVEN TRY"

Wherever they got gambling you know they gonna have everything. I trekked from Witchita Falls Texas down to Nuevio Laredo, and while they didn't have gambling they had Black Cat Bone with Meringue and lots of everything else, they had everything else every where, a boy couldn't cross the street down there with out gettin' clapped with a Cream Pie, don't mind if I do. I was talking to my friend Susan, and she say they got gamblin' all the way from Biloxi to Bay St. Louie, I don't doubt it for a minute and if they got all that then they got Pie, all kinds, just like in Vegas, where not everything stays in Vegas, I know a couple fellas brought some serious crust back from Vegas; but Vegas got nuthin' you can't get at Bay St. Louie, or Shreveport even, and that goes double for Biloxi where the Buttermilk Pie ain't a gamble, its a sure thing and you can get her still warm from the oven. Italian Cream in Atalntic City, Strawberry-Rhubarb at Mackinaw Island, even Apple-Brown Betty in Amish Country, be sure to tell Betty it was I that sent ya. But I went the damn wrong way outta Witchita Falls...shoulda just headed north into Choctaw Bingo country. They got Oklahoma Jane , comes from the land of Bois d'Arc tree, Scotch-Irish and Cherokee, serves up Sooner Moon Pies and whoops it up, and she dances too, dances like you wouldn't believe just take her by the hand one little dance couldn't hurt a thing.The only thing you can't find anywhere anymore is a Pay Phone and a News Stand. They turned the News Stands into Triple A Escort Kiosks and you get Disposable Phones-by-the-Minute like you buying a soda from a machine at the car wash across from Whiskey Flats and there more snatch on that stretch than you can throw a Chicken Ranch at.

THE NUTRITIONIST

I finally surrendered to my doctor and took an appointment with a Nutritionist in order that I might get shed of a few pounds.
She was a nice soft blonde haired woman with a Masters Degree in Nutrition and I really wish I didn't have such a big mouth.
I sat next to her in her office and she asked me a series of questions about my eating habits, which I answered in as entertaining a fashion as I could muster.
But her last question, its the one i wish I could take back my answer.
"How much weight would you like to lose Mr. Bulletholes? she politely asks.
"Well, back before I quit smoking and using dope I weighed about 250 pounds. It would be good to get back to that"
"Thats only 18 pounds Mr. Bulletholes, you can do better than that"
"Well, back when I weighed 235, I felt pretty good. I didn't have to hold my breath to tie my shoes,"
"That would be 33 pounds Mr. Bulletholes" she replied.
I wasn't sure if I had set a good enough goal; I didn't want her to think I was some kind of slacker, so I had to push it.
I rolled up one of my sleeves and made a muscle with my bicep, and with my other hand I pointed to my muscle and announced in my stupidest hillbilly voice;
(And boy howdy do I have a stupid hillbilly voice, lemme' tell you whut)
"Check it out Doc....Back when I weighed 215, I was a STUD, for real, for real"
She barely looked up.
She just kind of whispered 'Okee-Dokee" to herself.
And she didn't even bother to add up what the weight loss total would be.
God I say some stupid shit.

Five Worst Love Songs ever….#5 “I Can Feel Your Heartbeat” by the Partridge Family

When you opened the door to my sisters room, the first thing you saw was a huge picture of David Cassidy. The second thing you might see was the life-size picture of the Partridge Family standing outside their bus, presumably chillin’ and clowning around with mom before going on one of their fun filled musical tours.
My sister had this album of theirs and they had a huge hit ‘I Think I love You” on it and she played it constantly on her little Phonograph in her room.
And every teenage girl back then hoped that David Cassidy might love them.

I always waited patiently for this “Think I Love You” song to end, because to me the best song on the album followed right after.
It was called “I Can Feel Your Heartbeat” and to my 13 year old mind it had to be the sexiest song since “Sugar, Sugar”. When my sister wasn’t around, sometimes I’d go into her room, put on that ‘Heartbeat” song and look longingly at the picture of Susan Dey, wearing that maroon crushed velvet pantsuit with white ruffled collars and cuffs and fantasize about “checking her pulse” up close and personal like.
And to think that maybe this song, “I Can Feel Your Heartbeat” might be sufficient cause for her to want to check mine.

Yes, the heart of a 13 year old boy is a deep dark and mysterious place, deeper and darker than anything Celine Dion might sing about.
So the reason that I vote this song to be #5 of the 5 Worst Love Songs ever is not because it sucked so bad, but because I liked it and all its innuendo so much.
I can’t see a girl in scrubs, or go to the pharmacy for my meds, or see a Crushed Velvet Velour pantsuit without thinking of this song, secretly hoping that she might require some sudden medical attention, like Mouth-to-Mouth Rescusitation or CPR or something.
I could be her doctor 'till her doctor comes.

"My Stethy's in the shop baby, we'll have to do this manually"

LOVELY RITA

What I won't do for love won't get done.

I've cried, cleaned my apartment, played hard-to-get, begged for it; bought Dom Perignon, got fallin' down stupid; wore tight pants, tight shirts, high heels; talked sweet, talked dirty, talked all night on the telephone; got haircuts, grew mustaches, even let a couple chicks paint my toenails once. I've sung "Reminiscing" and been to see "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" on acid trying to get laid.
I even tried to learn the Cotton Eyed Joe for Rita.

Lovely Rita. I stole her from her boyfriend, but I stole her fair and square. It only took a couple months, and I really did like Rita.

We'd stay up all night and argue. We didn't fight; the arguments weren't heated, just long and we could just never seem to come to agreement on anything, like how to get the hostages back from Khomeni, which Christopher Cross song (Ride Like The Wind, duh) was the best or whether Jimmy Carter knew peanuts about how to run the country, and when the topic had at last played out and it was time to go to bed, well, thats where we always did OK, until at about 15 minutes into our lovemaking when Rita would say:
'Well lets just say that if Reagan is elected, the Moral Majority will outlaw Sexual Congress"

She was the sweetest disaster that lasted two years and ended with a broken bottle of Jack Black and her moving to Atlanta.
I got her silver T-Bird and the payments to go with it.
She got her freedom and my Washer and Dryer.
I never heard from her again except....

When I got married a couple years later to Shila, Rita sent us a card, but as Shila pointed out, Rita forgot to sign it.
How do you forget to sign a card?
Shila said it was Rita's way of stickin' it to us, but I wasn't going to argue about it.

TRICKLE DOWN TOMATO or COLLECTIVE BARGAINING

"I'd like a Footlong BLT on Wheat, please. No cheese"
"Toasted?" the clerk asked.
"Please"
After the sandwich came out of the toaster she asked:
'What else would you like on your sandwich?"
"I'd like a lot of Lettuce and Tomato"
She piled on a generous amount of Lettuce and topped it with four slices of Tomato.
"Um, could I please have more tomato on my BLT?"
"That's all I can give you"
"You're kidding?"
"No."
"You know that the "T" stands for tomato, right? I was looking forward to Tomato on my BLT"
"That's all I can give you."
'Why?"
"Because the price of tomatoes has gone up"
I can smell the Bacon and Oh Lawdy-Lord I want that BLT bad. Bad enough I'm starting to feel a little agitated.
"I tell you what ma'am, I'll give you an extra dollar for more Tomato."
But her assistant, a young clean cut looking fellow comes to her aid.
"We can't give you more tomato. That's how much we are supposed to put on a sandwich and we can't give you any more"
My serenity at this point is seriously challenged, but I keep my cool and try another approach, albeit with an edge to my voice:
"I tell you what, we are going to have to be smarter than the sandwich....Let me explain what I WILL NOT be having on my sandwich. I will not be having (TICKING EACH ITEM OFF ON MY FINGERS) Olives, Pickles or Cucumbers. I will not be having any Onion, Bell Pepper, Jalapeno or Italian Pepperocini's. I don't want Spinach or Parmesan Cheese, and in exchange for all these items to which I am otherwise entitled I would like to trade them all for four (HOLDING UP FOUR FINGERS ON ONE HAND)more slices of tomato. Because I like Tomato on my Bacon Lettuce and Tomato sandwich."
They each looked at each other and then back to me. The girl shrugged and said 'We can't do it."
I couldn't believe it! I'd tried everything! I was at the end of my rope...
"I tell you what...I'm going to have to go ahead and be a jerk this one time. You guys can eat that sandwich yourself"
...and I walked out.

I think they must have been Republicans.