At age seven I remember donning my favorite pink flannel robe and tying an amazing macrame belt around my waste to cinch up the bulk. After slipping into a pair of plastic rainbow dress up shoes, I marched proudly into living room and announced to my mom and dad that I was all ready to go out to dinner. You can imagine my utter surprise when my parents told me that I had to change my clothes before we left. Couldn’t they see just how fabulous I looked? Eva Gabor had worn something so similar on Green Acres that very day and my seven year old mind thought she was the most dazzling woman alive. My parents obviously had no style.
Since then, there are many more things in this life that I just don’t understand. For instance, why would a woman choose to wear a heavy support bra (usually they are large and white with dirty straps) paired with a slinky tank top? Why does my ex-husband smother his healthy broccoli in mayonnaise? Why do dirty homeless men get more dates than smart successful women? The pondering is endless.
We, as humans, are incredibly puzzling creatures. Some off us swim speedily through the world guiding our fellow school mates quickly through treacherous seas while many more of us spend our lives happily floating in the same pond day after day until we are eventually flushed down the toilet of life.
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1. What is it with all these crack hos? I never really noticed them until they built the new giant Walmart. Those “People Of Walmart Videos” are no joke. My last visit to Walmart was stressful; around every corner appeared a methed-out crack ho. They all charged past me like I had no right to an aisle. They cursed loudly, screaming at their equally nasty boyfriends. I’m sorry, but crack hos are just not my style. I like sweet grandmas and kittens. I’d rather drive slowly behind a snail-paced grandma driver than be run over by a crack ho any day of the week.
2. Nothing, and I do mean nothing, puzzles me more than people who love the Jerry Springer Show. Embarrassingly enough I went to a taping of two episodes of Jerry when I was in my early twenties. They were titled “Obese Strippers” and “Gay Rodeo”. It was intense and very memorable. The afternoon started out with a five-hundred pound woman gyrating in a g string and lacy negligee and ended with Jerry riding a horse into the audience before introducing a procession of cowboys in drag. The obese strippers were sad and the gay cowboys were rightfully proud and actually pretty inspiring. Granted, this was before the faked-out, vomit-inducing, bitch-slap fests that we all remember and try to forget, but scarily enough I did take part in the Springer phenomenon and I am not proud.
3. Many people love Nascar, but I do not get it. To me it is hours of vroom vroom vroom around a circle. It is loud and only exciting when someone crashes, which troubles my sensibilities. I don’t like to see anyone hurt, even to spice up a boring race. I don’t understand the logo-covered cars either. Are they really going to make me more apt to shop at Home Depot or eat M&M’s? I think not.
4. Another thing I have never understood is playing games on Facebook. To me Facebook was created to legalize voyeurism and I enjoy it immensely. I love snooping and finding out what people are doing.
Then...one day someone challenged me to a little app called Songpop and I can’t stop playing it. So here I am doing something completely unexpected, guessing at ten second song blurbs as fast as I can, trying desperately to get a higher score than my adversary and usually failing.
Now I think that since I am capable of Facebook game playing, what lies ahead for me? Surely not dirty bra straps or crack hos! Someday perhaps I will become a mayonnaise-eating-Nascar-watching-mama, but not today. Alas, will I begin to wallow in the pond of comfortable illusion? Quick, I need a life-preserver before I float down into the pit of despair.
I’m interested to hear what you don’t understand...even if it’s me.
