Jerry Springer

I think that we should make Jerry Springer a part of speech.

He has done more than anyone that I can think of to show us just how strange Americans can be and how pitiful most people really are. He put white trash on TV, and we loved it.

As tribute I think that we give him his own word for the contributions he has made to American culture. Here are some suggestions:

Springerlings- People who act like those we see on the show.

Springerfemmes- Young, drug addled whores who have nothing to aspire to in their lives except getting stoned, making babies, and possibly being on Springer.

Springerdoods- Men who are proud of their perversions and are happy to go on national TV to tell us of their sexual attraction to moldy bread covered in cheese sauce or their own sisters, daughters, or pets. (Also covered in cheese sauce)

Springerettes- These are latchkey offspring of working parents who watch Jerry every day for lessons on how to act when they ‘gets all growed up.’

Springershock- A condition that happens when something is just so white trash, incredible, outrageous, or stupid that it leaves you standing there speechless with your mouth hanging open.

Springerfights- Bitch slapping and name calling battles in which cloths are torn, breasts exposed, but no real damage is done.

Make up some of your own. Use them at work and with your friends. If all goes well, soon there will be a tribute to Jerry Springer in the dictionary in the form of his very own word!

Have a very Jerry day!

Mall Fashion Police

Don’t the people who get paid tremendous amounts of money to predict and put in place the next trend know that not just the sleek and svelte are going to adopt the latest fashion? Fatties are going to want to look like their thinner friends and are going to try to wear the latest skin tight, flesh exposing, bump accenting cloths that their thinner sisters are thinking are all the rage this season.

There outta be a law.

I think we need Mall Fashion Police. Every Mall around the country should be forced to hire at least two gay men to enforce common sense in the public gathering places of youth.

These MFPs should have the right to interrupt the fun and mating rituals of young women (And men) to enforce taste and common decency in public. I can see it now:

MFP, “Excuse me, could we have a word with you?”
FC (Fashion Criminal), “Uh, sure. Like, what’s wrong?”
MFP, “Well, darling, we were just thinking that you are a bit large for the pants and top you have on.”
FC, “Like, what do you mean?”
MFP, “What we mean is that your belly is hanging over the top of your pants and your top is so tight we can read the tag on your teatbags.”
FC, “But, like, this is the latest fashion! I just bought it!”
MFP, “Honey, that outfit is just wayyyy too small for a girl your size. You look like you are gonna bust out of that thing, and lady, we really don’t want to see that happen. Your cottage cheese thighs go all the way to your neck. If that outfit busts a seam it would look like a dairy exploded in here.”
FC (Beginning to cry), “But, like, I just bought it! The lady at, like, the store said I looked HOT! And all the boys have been looking at me.”
MFP, “The only way that look is hot is if you are trying to mate with a whale or polar bear. You just waddle your fat ass back to that store, demand your money back, and buy something that leaves a little more to the imagination. (Like a tarp.) The boys have been looking at you because they have never seen a peek-a-boo sausage skin cover a sofa before. If you go right now, then I won’t have to write you a ticket.”

Please help enforce common sense in clothing. Talk to your Mall Manager about the MFP program.

One face, many faces

I was telling a tale at work the other day and saw something that I found amazing.

I made a particularly tasteless comment (Yeah, like you’re surprised) and the gal in the room made the most interesting face I have ever seen.

The look was one of amazement, confusion, revulsion, and sheer terror all at the same time.

I didn’ think that many expressions could fit on one face simultaneously.

This week I am going for five expressions.

I hope she is up to the challenge.

Toddler training

Why do people let their kids under the age of 5 run around unattended, unwatched, and seemingly unwanted??

Yesterday I was followed for almost my whole shopping experience by some little boy about four years old that was wearing a little pack that made it look like a monkey was hanging onto his back while trying to strangle him. I wanted to help the monkey.

I never did see the kid with his parents. Perhaps he was lost and thought I would help him. Perhaps his parents dropped him off to let the public baby sit him. Perhaps his parents dropped him off in the hopes that someone would take him home thinking he was a pork roast.

You are probably thinking that I don’t like kids. I like kids. I just don’t like kids that are running wild. I think that the dog standard should be used in all public places; “You must keep your child on a leash at all times and subject to good behavior.”

I think that all kids should be have to pass a simple test before they are allowed more than two feet away from their parents in public. In this test they would have to obey simple commands like stay, heel, come, shut up, and respond properly to “No”. If the child fails this test three times in a row, their parents have to enroll in child obedience training classes.

If that doesn’t help, then the parents have to spend two nights in jail while their child attends a sort of kiddy boot camp. Intensive Toddler Training Camps would sprout up all over the country.

It would create a new industry and keep lots of psychologists in steady paychecks designing ITTC programs. The benefits would be tremendous now and in the future.

And help keep people like me from wanting to kill the loveable little tykes.

Cause of the day

I love the ‘Back to nature’ freaks. They provide me with hours and hours of entertainment with their wild claims and stupid demands.

“We need to eliminate the modern water closet! We are flushing ourselves into a water shortage!”

“The use of fossil fuel is causing global warming and by the year 2015 the country will be under water.”

“Research proves second hand smoke causes infertility in gay men.”

“Toe fungus is part of the natural order and should be left to grow unmolested.”

“We need to dump more money into research for the cure to AIDS.”

“Deforestation is effecting the climate, read all about it in the paper tonight.”

“Clean air protest tonight! Free parking!”

Sometimes I think I need a cause. Something to feel passionate about and lecture innocent, uncaring people about when I am feeling bored or haven’t gotten enough sleep the night before.

Troll discrimination could be fun, but the other majorities have already used up the quota of interest in any discrimination claim.

The Gnome problem would be good, but they have a far better publicist than the Troll lobby. Gnomes get all the good press. (Those little drunken bastards.)

Apathy! I shall promote the benefits of apathy! That would be a great cause!

If I can only bring myself to care.

My child's name

I have never understood the concept of giving your child a weird, (oops, I mean ‘unusual’) name. You are making a decision that your CHILD will have to live with for the rest of his life.

Kids make fun of other kids that have ‘different’ names. That is the way it is. It is human nature.

In order to appear trendy and cool, I informed Mrs. Troll that if we were to have a child, (Insert shudder of revulsion here.) I would choose to name it “Tuber”.

That statement pretty much guaranteed that we shall never have unprotected sex again.

I would not be surprised if she demanded that I wear a body condom.

Johnny the Lettuce Diver

I HATE listening to parents that don’t have a clue as to how to get their kids to behave in public.

“Johnny, come here.”
(Johnny wanders into the produce cooler.)
“Johnny! Where are you?”
(Johnny is climbing the strawberry display and is nearing the top.)
Sticking her head in to the cooler, “Johnny! What are you doing?” (The answer is obvious.)
“Johnny, come here!”
(Johnny is getting prepared for a dive of destiny into the lettuce.)
“Johnny, I am going to start counting.” (Is this an appropriate time to do the Sesame Street thing?)
“One.” (Johnny makes his leap and does a perfect belly flop into the lettuce, incidentally loosing the contents of his overfull diaper all over the wet food.)
“Two.” (Johnny begins laughing and doing a little dance of delight celebrating the completion of his dive.)
“Oh you little scamp! You are just soooo cute!” (Mother unit comes over to scoop the little darling up and cart him off to some other part of the store, reinforcing his bad behavior and avoiding having to do anything that resembles discipline.)

I don’t blame the kids. I DO blame the parents.

But payback happens. Twelve years later Johnny is trying to borrow the car to give his pregnant girlfriend a ride to get an abortion from his stoned friend Mike who runs a back alley abortion clinic/ brothel.

Johnny, “Gimmie da keys.”
“I told you that you can’t drive the car anymore since you were caught driving drunk.”
Johnny, “ Gimmie da keys you stupid bitch or I’ll rip off your head and give your body to Mike.”
(Mom unit hands over the keys and any hope of ever feeling safe in her own home again, along with any shred of dignity that she may have ever had.)

I don’t like to take delight in the misfortune of others, but every time I meet one of these undisciplined kids somewhere I know that their parents are going to be paying the price of raising bratty kids for the rest of their lives while I only have to put up with it for a few minutes.

It still doesn’t mean that I am going to like it.

Imagination

The lovely Mrs. Troll called me last night from her ‘vacation’ in Florida. She wanted me to know that there was no point in calling her because she was going out for a night of partying with her newfound friends at the convention.

So of course (Being a man and all that.) my mind began a trip of it’s own, creating mental images of her and her new friends in some swanky upscale bar, swilling stiff drinks and flirting outrageously with much younger and much-more-attractive than-I–could-ever-be men, one of which takes a liking to her before they go to his luxury high rise apartment for a night of flaming passion mixed with interludes of drunken debauchery and tasty finger foods. (I just had to throw in the food.)

My insecurities then tell me that she will take a real liking to this new found sexual freedom, later calling me to tell me that she sorry but she is not returning home and is starting a new life in Florida as a promiscuous administrative assistant, sleeping her way to the top. She then tells me that I should send the twins to their father, get on with my life, and forget her because she is never coming back to New Mexico. Ever.

At this point I imagine that she tells me that I am inadequate as a lover, my breath smells, I drool when I sleep, and I need to pull out that sharp stick that someone jammed in my ass that seems to make me angry all the time.

So here I am, in South Texas, alone, mourning my freshly shattered marriage, and feeling sorry for myself.

Right, and monkeys are flying outta my butt.

If I actually come to believe any of this kind of bullshit I have obviously turned into my own bitch.

If I ever become that kind of person that could even contemplate ending a relationship because of my own imagination, then please kill me, cut me into small pieces, put me in old mayonnaise jars, and bury me behind the hospital.

That way I might provide a mystery for bored policemen and hospital administrators when my flesh seeps from it’s container and creates a stench even people that clean up human waste every day would gag over.

Causing trouble even after I die, that’s something worth living for.

Expectations

I have been dealing with a problem. I have expectations. I expect people to live by the rules that they have supposedly accepted and agree to live by.

It’s like some kid that wants to play a board game with you, but wants to make up his own rules as he goes along. You don’t want to play with the kid that won’t play by the rules, do you? I feel the same thing in real life. Every day.

If you have a job, you have rules that your employer expects you to abide by; be punctual, do your work, don’t steal, don’t lie, ect. and so on. Some are so basic that we seldom talk about them, some are a little more complicated, but we all know the rules of our home or workplace. If we don’t, then something is wrong.

If someone jumps the border, it seems to me that they know that they are doing something illegal. Now they are bitching and whining that they are going to be made criminals. They seem to think that they are entitled to a ‘get out of jail free’ card, given full privileges, and forgiven for anything that they have ever done wrong.

Maybe I should not have expectations. Experience is teaching me that expecting people to behave as if they are civilized is not reasonable. Experience teaches me to expect people to act like spoiled children, throwing baby fits when they are caught with their hand in the cookie jar. Experience teaches me that people will go sneaking around trying to get away with things that they know are wrong, but want forgiveness when they are caught, not justice. Justice always is for other people, never for us.

From what I am seeing on the media lately, it seems like the last thing that Americans want is justice. American’s want free fuel, wars free from conflict, freedom for their religion and no other, everyone loving one another, and to dictate how the government acts by demonstrations, not voting. We seem to think that all people are good, and just because some guy killed his sisters husband and tried to give a jacket made from the skin to his girlfriend, he should be put back on the streets after a couple of therapy sessions and a good stern talking too because he says that he was off his medications for that ugly skin rash that caused him so much embarrassment when he was a child.

My expectations have been causing me a lot of emotional grief because I take these things seriously. When I catch someone at work stealing, I get pissed. When I have to work with undocumented workers, I get pissed. When I see Cindy Sheehan protesting the war and claiming the President is avoiding her because he made vacation plans that did not take into consideration HER schedule, I get pissed.

We, as a society, seem to be becoming a society of whiny, spoiled children, throwing protests when we realize that the people we voted into office are unable to make things happen without some cost coming back to the voter.

There is ALWAYS cost, people! You can’t protest the laws of nature or economics!
(Well, you can, but you might just show the rest of the world just how out of touch you really are. Might I suggest that you go all the way and protest the law of gravity? THAT law oppresses EVERYBODY.)

But other people have expectations, too. Their expectations seem to lean toward accepting no responsibility. I expect people to act like adults and other people expect authority figures to accept and forgive irresponsible behavior.

I expect people to be responsible; people seem to want to be irresponsible.

In my mind, they are clearly wrong. We all need to be held accountable for our actions. If we are not, then the all things we have worked so hard to achieve are devalued.

Think about it. It will come to you. What I just said really does make sense; you will just have to think it through. Take your time. Hint: The statement applies as much to societies as it does to individuals.

Have a responsible day.

Touchey Feeley

One of the people at work was asking me questions about the products that we install. He was asking for information and we kind of struck up a conversation.

This guy is what I call a ‘touchy’, one of those people that has to reach out and touch a person that he is interacting with, as if to reaffirm that he is actually talking to a real person instead of one of a plethora of imaginary friends. I, on the other hand, am not a touchy person. When I was a child and went to bed at night, I shook my mothers hand after the age of six.

I noticed that as the conversation progressed, the touches became more frequent. After a while, his hand began to linger a bit. Shortly after that, there was a gentle squeeze thrown in. He began to take every opportunity to make physical contact, each one lasting a fraction of a second longer than the last. I am not sure if he was politely hitting on me or of he was sizing me up as his next meal.

On the afternoon TV shows that prey on lonely women they will often tell you, “If it doesn’t feel right, it probably isn’t.”

It did not feel right. It really did not feel right. My alarm bells were going off and sirens were going off in my head. Lights were flashing behind my eyes and I wanted to yell, “Keep your fucking hands off me you creepy bastard!”

I did not. I kept my cool. This man could cause a lot of needless confusion if he feels threatened. I did not get the feeling that he was hitting on me as much as the feeling that he is just a REALLY creepy individual that is in desperate need of something in his life.

I have no intention of being that something.

Unfortunately my imagination brought forth images of him marinating my flesh in a nice Italian dressing before throwing parts of me on the grill, or checking out if I have a proper amount of fat in order to make a good winter coat.

There are times that having a good imagination is not such a good thing.

On children

I went shopping yesterday. I hate shopping, but sometimes I have to if I want to remain fat and happy. Well, at least the fat part.

The reason that I hate shopping is people. Those dirty little wrigglers that we are forced to share our personal space with in order to get the best deals. The worst of the wrigglers are the kids. They make me want to carry a gun and practice retroactive birth control wherever I go. (“Excuse me ma’am, may I see your child rearing card? You don’t have one? I’m sorry. BAM!!)

Today was a perfect example. Imagine if you will, a preteen girl, (I think they call them tweens now) standing before her father figure, asking for money. Well, not so much asking for money, but DEMANDING money by yelling over and over in a loud voice, “Give me money, give me money!” and stomping her feet in a petulant frenzy.

Just that much alone would give me cause to shoot her in the head if this were a civil society, but it is not and I am no longer allowed to go armed.

Then she did something that should have put her in the hospital at least. She SLAPPED her father!! Not a playful slap, mind you, but a full on Bitchslap! If she were my daughter I would have dragged her sorry ass out of that store by the hair in order to teach her the fear of God in private. She is not my daughter, I could not drag her sorry ass out of the store, and I shall not do anything in order to avoid violating my probation. (But they can’t take my thoughts away.)

My advice to parents out there who might by a happy chance read this; demand that your children treat you with as much or more respect that you expect from your friends and coworkers. If they do not, take everything away that they expect for free, sell it at a yard sale, then sell your kids to the first passing stranger that expresses an interest.

It beats the hell out of making bail.

Silence

In this age of constant earput, I-Pods, TV, satellite radio, video babble, and every other imaginable entertainment possibility, we no longer experience silence. We go through each and every day constantly inundated with preprogrammed puss jammed into our heads through our aural membranes, a constant flow of noise designed to keep our brains busy and our heads empty.

We have become afraid of silence, as though it is the silent enemy, waiting in the wings to make us crazy by simply being exposed to it for any length of time. We take more action to avoid silence than we take to remain clean and sanitary. We just can’t seem to tolerate quiet.

Radio in the car, TV in the bedroom, TV in the refrigerator door, TV in the living room, noise in every room and no one even thinks to turn it off. Hell, we get pissed if someone turns it off! We shout from across the house, “I was watching that”, and actually think we were.

We even resort to talking to ourselves. I don’t know about you, but I know that I am not that entertaining that I really want to listen to myself. (I already know what I am thinking.) We talk to ourselves because it beats the alternative: silence. When it becomes too quiet, we find ourselves muttering our thoughts to fill up that void, filling that empty space between our ears with meaningless gibberish and babble.

We mutter and fill up the vacuum with sound because we are afraid to begin thinking. If we think, we might actually think of SOMETHING, and we can’t have that, now, can we? There is the slight chance an epiphany might happen, then we might have to share it with other people, and we might change a little bit of our world for the better.

Silence is the leading cause of mental illness. If we think too much, we can convince ourselves of anything. If we have nothing better to do, we can believe that the Government is watching our every move and planning on how to introduce us to the Aliens from outer space that are holding Elvis’s brain hostage.

I don't do time.

I remember a time, not that long ago, when the lovely and talented Mrs. Troll informed me that she had used me as an excuse to get out of some social engagement or another.

When I asked her the hows and whys, she said, “I told them that you reminded me that it is your grandson’s birthday.”

“Then they know you are lying.” I told her.

“And how would you know that?” she asked with that ‘I’ve got you on this one’ look on her face.

“Easy,” I replied, “Everybody knows men never remember birthdays.”

I love being right. That’s once so far this year and it’s only May!

Back to the valley

It was a ridiculously early time of day, one that the Mrs. is not used to. She was grouchy and not wanting to take me to the airport at a time that makes early risers seem like sleepyheads.

And beside that, it was a particularly uneventful trip. No constantly yakking women, no flames, no nuthin’. The worst I had was a doctor that kept falling asleep and never said a word to me.

If all my trips were this boring, I could learn to like airlines.