I've Gotta Have it!

This morning I had one of “the” worst experiences that a coffee drinker could ever have. Let me start at the beginning. I enjoy, no not even enjoy, I am addicted to coffee, not caffeine but coffee. I am in love with coffee. Last night I went to the neighbor “hood” Kroger to search for the perfect coffee to drink for the holiday weekend. Everything from Kenya blend to New Orleans blend to plain ole vanilla was displayed before me. I was all over that coffee like J-Lo to a Prada shoe sale. Reading each and every bag, I determined that the Cinnamon blend would be the perfect taste for my holiday coffee feast. Really though, how pathetic am I to spend this much time picking out coffee that probably was made here and tastes just like Folgers? Well, I couldn’t help myself. I guess when you’re a full fledged addict you can’t stop. So at 5 bucks a pop I purchased a bag (even sounds like drugs-yeah man, I bought a bag of the good stuff!) I hustled home to get to sleep so I could get up and make my coffee in the morning. Well, I didn’t go right to sleep but you get the point I am trying to make that I couldn’t wait for morning to come. Normally on the weekends I will sleep until 8 or 9 but not this morning, oh no, I got up at 6 and ran into the kitchen to grind my beans. Oh yes, I am a full fledged coffee snob, I must grind my beans as I have heard it tastes fresher; but I don’t think it does. However, once you tell people that they MUST get whole bean coffee to grind you can’t be seen in the hood buying “ground” coffee ever again. What would people think? So here I am grinding the coffee, filling the coffeemaker with distilled water (if you’ve read my previous blogs, my tap water is brown, but anyway) and measuring the perfect coffee to water ratio. The aroma has almost overcome me and I am immediately catapulted into a fantasy of me running through fields of cinnamon on a deserted island with my dog, running to…I’m sorry, I am getting sidetracked. So, I start brewing and begin to get out my favorite coffee mug and a spoon for my sugar. I wait impatiently for a few minutes and it’s finally done! I carefully pour my coffee without spilling a drop of this precious commodity. Now the grand finale, I go to my Coolmax 5000 to get out the final topper offer…..the cream (aka half and half.) At first, I don’t see it behind my ketchup where it normally lies, “that’s ok I thought it must be here somewhere”. Slowly the panic sets in and I begin to break out into a cold sweat as I really DON’T SEE IT. Of course you don’t see it idiot, THERE IS NONE! There is no freakin’ half and half. Son of a mother #@&*^%$#!! I realize the panic attack has set in and I rush over to take a valium. Ok, these things happen, I will just run to the store to get some. HA, yeah right. Its 6 am in the hood and the only place open is you guessed it the Kroger. What happens when you run into a gigantic grocery store to buy one item QUICKLY? You know how I feel about this already. But nonetheless it was crunch time as the coffee has been poured and my world is on hold. I drive to Kroger. I go in to get the damn half and half and wait in line for about 15 minutes. Fuming people I am fuming. Is it my idiocy in neglecting the most precious ingredient in coffee, the damn cream? Or is it the sales person checking me out that appears to be falling asleep and is moving slower than a 95 year old man who has overdosed on sleeping pills? Come on lady wake the heck up! Good grief, I finally have the half and half and drive home. As I pull in the driveway, oh lord no, it’s my talkative neighbor that has three dogs and no life. She appears to be waiting to chat and it’s too late for me to turn back so I get out of the car with cream in hand. I do my best to be cordial while thinking about my COOLING coffee and the fact that I really am in my pajamas. Slowly, I start moving backwards towards the door so she won’t notice and she starts moving slowly FORWARD. Oh god what if she wants to come in for coffee!? Hell NO! Its mine all mine. I get up the courage to say as nice as I can, “Helen, I think I am about to have diarrhea, gotta go now, I’m sorry!” She gets the hint and backs off quickly. I run inside and pull the shades down so she wont see me standing there fixing my coffee. Good lord I sound insane, no I am insane. Well, who cares because once I poured the half and half in my cup and took the first sip, I knew I had found true inner peace, well, at least for the moment.

Come on back ya'll!

When I moved here, I learned a few “rules” that are very important to survival here in MS when dining out with the natives: 1.) Asking for “Thousand Island” dressing at your favorite local hot spot during dinner forces your waitress into convulsions and utter restaurant mayhem. It’s called COMEBACK and ask for it by name. Though most Mississippi dressing critics would say that comeback is nothing like that “Island” dressing. Pssst…it’s the same thing! 2.) Ordering “off the menu” at lunch is for suckers or Yankees (In my case, one in the same.) You order the “Plate lunch of the day” no matter WHAT IT IS and you say thank you and eat it. Oh and for the love of god, DO NOT order cola with your plate lunch. It’s called TEA and anything else is utter foolishness. 3.) Do not, under any circumstances, ever admit that you do not LIKE spicy food and never say something tastes SPICY to you. That is the equivalent of telling your mother on Mothers day that you’d rather spend it with the homeless man down the street who picks his nose and eats it.” It’s just not acceptable. Nothing is spicy to Mississippians and if it is they will never admit it. So, get out your TEA and start eating (portion control really comes in handy here.)

What is this World Coming to?

Mean people suck, but let’s face it, they not only roam the earth in search of their next victim but they are in abundance. When was the last time someone let you into traffic on a crowded, overpopulated street? Who cares that your car has no A/C and its 150 degrees in the shade and you were forced to cut off that last car just to get where you are now? Did they not see your face about to explode with heat and rage as you slowly inched your way closer and closer into traffic so that you might overtake the next car? Thus, earning your spot on the road? No, they don’t see you sitting there because they aren’t looking at you. They are giving you the “I know you’re looking at me because I wont let you in but I am too embarrassed to look your way” look. We all know that look I am sure. Aside from traffic, what about when you run into the grocery store to buy a gallon of ice cream (before Survivor starts and only one check out is open) and a woman with the fullest grocery cart is in front of you? No wait! She has two carts! Do you think she will let you go before her with your one urgent item so you can get home and see if they voted off that pesky Tom yet? Heck no. So at this point do you say, “Excuse me, I really just have this ONE item, do you mind?” She looks at you as if you are the most pathetic creature (yes you do have your slippers on but you ran out without thinking about your footwear) she has ever seen. Then, she looks at your ONE item and her brain is computing…it’s not aspirin for a sick child, it’s not Imodium for diarrhea, it’s not tampons for “that time of the month emergency”…its freakin’ ice cream! “No,” she says “I’m sorry but I am in a rush too.” Ok that is just plain mean. Would it have killed her to let you quickly check out and be on your way? Meanwhile she stocks up on Karma points? Yeah guess again, slipper girl.

The Beginning of the End?

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, today is the last day of school for the public school system here in town. Children of all ages, races, classes, will be screaming in jubilee as they walk, rather run from their school building for the summer. Ahhh, the good ‘ole days when you felt that freedom as you realized that you had a couple months off with no responsibilities unless your parents crossed the line and made you get a job. Personally, I think a child working during the summer builds character, responsibility, and their bank account. However, by making children work are we robbing them of their precious youth? Nonetheless, I am getting off on a tangent and that is not the point of this specific post. I would rather dwell on those last days of school when teachers are faced with the dilemma of scoring their pupils grades. I’ve always had this notion that your final grade reflected either your diligent studying and hard work or your idiocy and lack of concern for the all important passing grade. Recently, I have had the opportunity to learn exactly what happens in this public school system at the end of the year. Let me give you a little background before I tell you about that though. My informant (sounds so “Watergate”) is a woman (who we’ll call Sally) teaches the sixth grade in an urban school system. Throughout the year she teaches, tests, grades, teaches, tests, grades and so on and so on. She has been attacked, verbally abused and cussed at, all by her children who range in age from 11-16. Now let me remind you this is the SIXTH grade. When I was in sixth grade I was eleven and when I was sixteen, I was entering my junior year in HIGH SCHOOL. I understand that times have changed and blah blah blah. The reality that we all choose to ignore is that obviously a large number of children are flunking the sixth grade and are now labeled “the repeaters.” Naturally, we as a society would want to blame the teachers for what we perceive as inadequate teaching skills; especially if our child flunked three years in a row. Would it be inappropriate to place blame on the parents or even GOD forbid on the students? The truth I am confident lies somewhere in the middle of this cluster of failure. And it’s not just about blame it’s about the quality of life for our society as these students who would rather beat up their teacher than learn to read and write (because they themselves were beaten at home?). Oh I forget to tell you that at least 75% of her students cannot write and can barely read. Some girls are pregnant, some boys and girls are in gangs and some children are actually almost adults, etc. Sally has gathered at least 200 write ups for several of her children over the course of a couple of months. As instructed by her principle, she hands these in with confidence that these matters will be handled. For example, when a student called her a mother >expletive< and threatened her. The boy was sent to the principle and the write-up was turned in. The result? Expulsion? Detention? How about “if you would learn to control your class then you wouldn’t have a lot of these problems.” I guess when you are a teacher standing tall at 5’5” and at least half of the MEN in your class range from 5’10” to 6’ tall you have a tendency to feel slightly overwhelmed; especially if your children are flashing gang signs back and forth or threatening to blow up the school or slapping the teacher in the class next door. Is this when you are supposed to “control” their behavior? Is this before or after you’ve come to the realization that most of these kids’ parents have ignored them for most of their life and have given up trying to “control” their behavior? If the administration does not support the teachers’ then it is sending a very clear message to the students (oh by the way, the student that threatened her? sent back to class) that their behavior is condoned. What about calling the parents you ask? What if the response you got is, “look I can’t control my son and it’s your job to teach him” Would you feel hopeful at this point? On top of all this, Sally is still trying to maintain a teaching environment for those students that want to learn in spite of the actions of many. Sally has shown me the final grades her children should REALLY be getting and the final grades the school board has ASSIGNED her to give. The board gave her a handout that said, “Regardless if a child was out due to illness/pregnancy, you are to ensure that no child gets BELOW a 60% and that all children shall be passed.” At first I thought that this must be illegal, “fixing” the grades to pass children that shouldn’t be passed. What about those kids that worked extremely hard to overcome the odds only to watch the idiots next to them pass? What kind of message is that? Do nothing, assault, cuss, harm, threaten and you will pass because we don’t want to deal with you for another year. Let’s pass these kids and let the seventh grade teacher help them learn to read. Possibly, is it that the school has flunked so many children because of their true grades that they now have too many repeaters who are now MEN and WOMEN? Is it the system that educates the teachers to act like prison guards instead of teachers? Is it the parents or lack thereof that is too blame for their child’s behavior? Is it the children that have been trained to not care about their future or to have an ounce of respect for an adult? Or simply is it a combination of all of these things or none of these things? Is it because we are in Mississippi or does this happen in all states? What will become of these children who are almost adults? Will they be forced to work at Krystal or Wendy’s drive thru because they cannot read or write or will they have children and go on welfare as their sister, mother, and grandmother did? What will happen to this state over time? Will there be enough children who want to learn and who are supported at home to lead Mississippi into our future? What kind of future will this state have? Mississippi is already ranked 47th out of 50 states in education. Perhaps I should have mentioned this at the beginning of this post. However, I wanted to explain what I have seen and heard being an outsider and just how utterly sad it is for all involved in this school system. My heart goes out to the teachers for risking their own well-being to better a child’s future. Also, to the children who really care about their future and learning and are forced to be grouped with those children that do not.

Muddy Waters and I don't mean McKinley Morganfield either

Growing older, I have discovered that I now cherish things that I once took for granted. For example, water. It comes in many varieties, flavors, and forms but mostly it comes from the tap. Rarely do I think about the fact that I am bathing in a regurgitated, tepid pool of my own crap. I guess normally I don’t notice because the water is clear and tastes like, oh I don’t know, nothing! Recently, I have had the very rare opportunity to ingest toxins from our “crap” water and from the soil surrounding it and live to tell about it. Not only did I ingest this putrid liquid but I also cleaned my body in it or so I thought I was. About four weeks ago on a Sunday evening in my lovely town in the comfortable state of Mississippi, I felt thirsty and went to the tap to fill up. Well, when I turned the faucet on the water appeared brown. Not sort of brown or not really clear but brown. Brown like, you know, crap. I thought if I just ran the water for a few minutes like they do in the movies, the water will clear up. Boy was I dead wrong. Not only did it not clear up but it began having a very strong smell to it. Bleach. My brown, crap water smelled like bleach. Well, I thought, at least the bleach will counter the crap right? Not quite. The crap, bleach aroma began to waft through the house at lightening speeds and I had to run open the windows before the house exploded. At this point it was obvious I had to call the experts: the water company. When I called, a lovely young woman answered the phone and said, “No alerts been filed so water’s fine but I’ll let “them” know, send someone out.” Them? Who “them?” “Them” must’ve been busy or out of town because “them” didn’t come and neither did “they.” Then again, if no alerts have been issued then what was I worried about. Clearly, this young lady knew more about water than a mere civilian like me. I chose to bathe in this crap water but wanted to believe it was just “rusty pipes” or “iron in the water.” I also began to bottle up this brown water in case something happened to me then the CSI people would figure out it was the water after all. Days and weeks went by with the bleach aroma coming and going while the brown water turned less brown, more brown, almost clear, light brown, brown etc until one day I received the “Water Report” >music…dum dum dum< Yes, the water report arrived and with an almost “child after candy on Halloween look” in my eyes, I opened the report. Luckily, I was able to scan the report quickly now that I had mysteriously grown a third eye and an extra thumb. However, I may as well have been Helen Keller because the words on the page were not in laymen’s terms and meant nothing to me. I did, however, recognize “key” words like violated, unsafe, toxic, contaminated, boil, etc. There was really no point in my fake reading any further, the water obviously had issues as well as the city that allowed its people to consume and bathe in it for weeks, months. Don’t get me wrong, I am not getting all “EPA” on you and will not be turning “green” anytime soon. It was just utterly curious to me that this report came weeks after people had been bathing in it. Well, on the positive side, at least we have some things to be thankful for in my city…better vision and easier hitchhiking techniques.

The Real Reason the "South" lost

I suppose if I was being politically correct, the subject matter of this post would be called insects instead of the more enjoyable, BUGS. When I lived elsewhere in the world I had a pretty good idea why the "south" lost until I moved here. This is when the real reason or shall I say the man behind the curtain emerged or the elephant in the living room no one talks about really came into the light. It was bugs my friends, bugs. I don't just mean an ant here or a mosquito there, I mean BUGS. Fact number one: Bugs in Mississippi outnumber the humans that chose to inhabit their land, their airspace, their home. These bugs are pissed off and if you don't believe me let me tell you a few things that may make you come to the light too. There have been some "situations" occur since I moved to this grand Confederate state of Mississippi. The state that has earned its place in history because of its music, its friendliness, its tea, its southern fried foods, its heat...I could go on and on. I really do believe Mississippi is more than just the word we use when we're counting, one Mississippi, two Mississippi. This state truly has some awesome history and some great people but unfortunately with the bug crux that threatens to doom most Yankees and send 'em running for their lives, I don't see how the Hospitality state will come out of this in the end. For example, a roach the size of freakin' Texas (really it was about 3 inches long) crawled on my neck as I sat in bed reading one night. I had felt something on my neck and thought it was probably those silly pesky lovable mosquitoes everyone talks about. However, my fingers brushed the shell of a roach and I screamed louder than a woman giving birth on fire in the middle of a Yankees game. I grabbed it and threw it across the room (mistake #one) wherein it ran under the bed. I decided I would spray some "floral scented" raid under the bed to try and "scare it out" (mistake #2) this obviously only upset the creature because it went into hiding and the fumes funkified the air to the point of near asphyxiation. Well, I was not about to stay in my apartment now that I was doomed with this bug. I tore the place apart for hours until I found the little monster. It had crawled into my pillowcase. Unfortunately, neither the bug nor the pillow made it out alive that night as I threw the pillow out the window. As the encases roach was plummeting three stories to his death I am positive he told the "others" what I had done because I had three more "situations" occur after this incident. Each time I had gone to get in bed and the roaches were either ON my pillow or UNDER my pillow. There truly is nothing more terrifying. Well, this concludes part one in my Insect series but I encourage you to stay tuned for part two where I will discuss "poisonous spiders take back the deck" and "fire ants: the spawns of satan."

Idiocy or Me?

Please explain this to me: I opened a checking account several months ago at a local bank. The bank wanted 3 forms of ID and more information about me than even I know. Normally, when I go to deposit money into my account, again they say I need the ID's. I repeat, deposit. Now, don't get me wrong, they are extremely NICE at this bank and I bank there because the clientele is much nicer than the other banks in the area. So today, I went to the bank to WITHDRAW money. I had to go inside because I didn't have a withdrawal slip. I didn't see the slips so I got in line. I waited briefly, as I said I love this bank. They are very efficient and I waited maybe 30 seconds. I asked the teller for a slip because I didn't see any on the counters. She said, "Oh we don't have withdrawl slips because we feel people waste those." Now, are you thinking what I am thinking? Do I use hand signals, smoke signals, write down the amount and casually slide the paper over to her, or merely say, "YES I WOULD LIKE TO WITHDRAW CASH PLEASE ROB ME." She just stared at me waiting to "tell her" how much money I wanted. I told her my amount and my account # and she opened up the drawer and gave me the cash. I REPEAT SHE GAVE ME THE CASH! Did you hear me say she asked for ID'S OR MY NAME OR SOMETHING to indicate that it really is my account? NO. I said, "don't you want to check my ID or something?" Of course I had already put the money in my pocket...She said, "If you have it, sure." ??? Needless to say, I got in my car, drove 2 miles down the street and opened a new account where the clientele is vicious and the teller wanted 3 forms of ID. I gladly gave her my information and asked her if I needed to show my ID's when I make transactions. She said "YES, but only when you withdraw money." Cool and they have slips to boot! I will probably get robbed coming in and out of the bank but at least I can sleep better knowing some schmuck can't withdraw my money.

Experiment

How many times can a normal human being reheat coffee in a microwave before it breaks down? Today I decided that I would be the very first person (I am sure there are others) to attempt this exercise. Well the first 5 times I nuked it for about 30 seconds...no changes. The next 3 times I nuked it for 1 min. WHOA, changes people, changes. The coffee, besides scalding the roof of my mouth, turned a clumpy gaseous liquid. I am not sure if it was even safe for me to drink, but I challenged myself and did it. Imagine placing burnt toast that is on fire, kerosene, and sour milk in a blender. Now, consume. Yes that is what it tasted like. Truly unfit for human consumption. The worst part? I am still sitting here drinking it. >sigh<

Toledo Baby

This is my most recent picture of myself. Just kidding. Imagine this face 34 years later...that's me!

Hocus Pocus

Not many people know this but I was born a Wizard. Luckily, my parents realized the ramifications of such a life and quickly removed the hat and glasses. Thus causing me to lose my powers. Oh well.