God Bless America

Voting lines in our precinct were longer than we’d expected. We could have voted early.  I think we might have done it, too, if someone would have been motivated enough to remind us 634 times, but 633? Get bent!

Anyway, we like to get up on election day, put on our best sweatpants and bad-hair-day hats,  walk the block to our local elementary school and queue up to perform our civic duty.

As do a lot of our neighbors. Lots and lots. And it would seem that the vast majority of Grandviewans (Grandviewers? SpongeView GrandPants?) regardless of political affiliation have a last name in the L-Z bracket. As we waited and sweated, and read the artwork adorning the hallway to learn which second graders believed themselves to be the class’s best drawers and/or cutest, we heard the constant announcement: A-K? A-K? If your name starts with letters A through K, you can go ahead in. A-K?

I began to really hate A-K, not to mention question the logic of this line jumping.

Also, I was a bit distracted by the person in line whose phone kept going off with the “cock-a-doodle-doo” ringtone. So, if that was you, I apologize for yelling “Okay, who brought the rooster?”

To be honest, I think it brought about PTSD flashbacks from the concession stand line at the Obama/Springsteen/Jay-Z rally the day before. Because George and I have built our home on the corner of Liberal Politics and E Street, naturally we attended. How could we not?

Doors opened at noon, with Obama allegedly taking the stage at 4pm, so we and 16,000 other left-minded Ohioans queued up at 9am. By the time we got inside, we’d been standing since breakfast, knew we wouldn’t be leaving until dinnertime, so we all – all 16K of us – started looking for concessions.

16 thousand people, all of whom had been in line for hours and were now starving, and Nationwide Arena only opened two food kiosks? With a total of 6 (three apiece) workers? I’ll tell you right now, had I been one of those six, I’d have taken my own life.

C’mon, it’s Bruce!  Baby, we were born to eat!

It’s Jay-Z! I got 99 problems, and right now number one is not having direct access to super nachos!

It’s Obama! I thought free condiments were now part of my health care!

I waited 90 minutes. At about minute 30, a large young woman appeared ahead of me. This simply doesn’t happen in a line. So I said, “Ma’am, don’t do this. We’ve been here half an hour already.”

She returned to her rightful spot behind me and began loudly calming herself. “I’m just going to settle down, I’m going to let it go, I’m not going to start anything. But I am going to say one thing, and that one thing is, pay attention.”

She turned to me.

“Pay attention. That is the rule for today, for all you fools. Pay attention.”

It seemed needless to point out that, had I not been paying attention, I probably wouldn’t have noticed her ditching the line. But I said it anyway.

Lines breed testiness. Just ask those guys in my same concession stand line that came to blows.

But then we all remembered that great Tesla song, “Lines, lines, everywhere a line…”

Wait, did I just use the words “great,” “Tesla” and “song” in a row?

Whatevs.  The point is, wimpy hair metal is offensive.

After 90 minutes, I gave up. I could hear speakers speaking and figured it wasn’t worth missing it all for a super nacho and a couple of naked hot dogs (no way was I trying to get to that condiment stand).

I hope someone checked that rooster’s ID…

Snap, Crackle, Pop

With the help of my determined husband George and an orthotic boot, I once got to meet Duran Duran. If you’ve met me, you no doubt know that. It’s not like I keep it a secret. And if I hadn’t been a gimp, it couldn’t have happened.

My routinely broken bones get me into stuff, and they get me out of stuff. Like manual labor. So I hate to look a gift horse in the mouth, but seriously, I should not break this easily. I’ve had eight confirmed fractures in my adult life. Seeing as I am not a stunt driver, this strikes me as excessive.

Given that my tendency to snap bone goes back to grade school, it doesn’t seem like an age related bone loss issue. I take in lots of calcium and vitamin D, I exercise, blah blah blah. I am clumsy, I’ll give you that, but still, 8 is a high number.

So I discovered via paranoid web sleuthing that cola leeches minerals from your bones.  But the expert says an average human intake of about 3 colas a month should not put you at risk.

The average human takes in 3 servings of cola in a month? One every ten days? That’s impossible. That’s like saying the average height for a woman is 5’4”.

It just cannot be, because that would make me some kind of freak.

Let me walk you through my habit.

I pound two or three 16-oz bottles of Diet Pepsi each morning. Then I eat at Chipotle, loading up on at least four refills of my medium beverage. Yes, I could splurge on a large, but refills cost nothing and I sit close to the soda fountain for convenience. Saves me like a dime, although it does nothing at all for my dignity.

How much I drink after lunch depends on any number of things. Am I eating dinner in? If yes, then maybe another two cans before bed. Am I eating out? If yes, then at least another 84 ounces (4 x 16 ounce drink).

If I eat out and go see a movie – I’m a film critic, so the likelihood here is higher than average – I could conceivably consume in excess of 200 ozs in an evening.

Which makes me a pig, and likely an addict. Let me articulate. Recently, the pop machine on my floor ran out of Diet Pepsi (can’t imagine who went through it all). I made the short trek to the deli on the first floor. I was horrified to see their vending machines unplugged and pushed to the other side of the room. Bob’s Deli was retiling its floor. It was like a bad dream.

I ran back up to the fourth floor, slowly, lumberingly, with legs of caffeine-depleted lead. I limped in a rage back to my office, then remember something important.

My son Riley, who spent the summer doing odd jobs no one else at my office wanted, used to roam the building looking for some kind of adventure. What he found were vending machines, including one mystical, magical pop machine that dispensed beverages for a quarter. A quarter!

I called him. In school. It’s a disease, people.

He told me the magic pop machine is on the 9th floor.

I go. I wander the halls of Floor 9 looking for the right business.

And then I spy it, glowing like a refreshment beacon. Relief is mine – or is it? Hold the phone.

They’re out of diet pop!

 Moderation being an alleged virtue – and sugar substitutes being an alleged toxin – I understand that I need to gain control over my problem. I can’t just have bones snapping and popping every time I fall down some stairs because, you know what? I’m uncoordinated. It’s going to happen. So I’m weaning.

Nothing in the morning. Nothing at work. Nothing in the car. Nothing at home. Nothing at the movies. 

All told, I’m down to 4 servings a day.

God damn it, I’m sleepy.

Cedar Point Scares the Shit out of People

I’m from Northwest Ohio originally, not exactly the state’s cultural hub. We have corn, soy, New Riegel’s Ribs, but not a lot else. What we have to hang our hat on is Cedar Point, the best amusement park on this or any planet.

And the time to go is now, during HalloWeekends.

The season boasts a few quickly constructed haunted houses, loud speakers blaring Monster Mash and Psycho’s theme, and Halloween-related what-not decorating the midway. Zombies roam about. Awesome.

But Cedar Point is scary enough on its own for some.

Like that Millennium Force rider who shit himself last time we were there. Just dropped a load right there in the seat. Thanks to poopy pants, a HazMat team had to come fumigate and the ride was closed. Bad for those in line, worse for Mr. Loose Bowels and his pantload, walking past the denied would-be riders in a march of shame toward some new drawers. It was at least 90 degrees out, and as he passed, it was just like you hit a wall. A stinky, stinky wall.

CP scares the shit out of others in a more figurative way.

Years back I tried to convince Riley to ride a favorite ride of mine, the old school Demon Drop – a rickety death trap that hauls you 130 feet in the air in a sort of open-air elevator shaft only to lock loudly into place, holding you in mid-air for a few seconds before dropping you screaming back to earth. Riley declined, but his friend Ryan with me. Ryan’s one of those smiling, polite kids, and my guess is that he felt sorry for me. His mistake.

The ride malfunctioned at the exact moment that it held our car out over the abyss. Three seconds became 30 seconds and then ten minutes as poor Ryan went from an excited flush to a ghostly pale to an alarming shade of chartreuse. By the time the contraption finally let loose, he’d already wished aloud for death.

But the most terrifying moment was yet to come.

By the time we were freed from Demon Drop’s clutches, everyone needed lunch, so we headed to the Subway we’d spied coming into the park. The menu was limited. We ordered 2 footlong subs, 2 six-inch subs – all cold – four bags of chips and four small fountain beverages (no refills allowed).

Guess how much this mediocre feast ran us.

They charged us –

wait for it …

seriously, wait…

seventy five fucking dollars.

I swear to god. $75 for four cold cut sandwiches, chips and pop.

For that price I  should get to punch Jared in the face.

Scary shit, indeed.

What Would Mayor McCheese Do?

My husband joined 4Square, in case anybody needs to know whether we’re at the movies or at Chipotle. We are always at one or the other.

In fact, he’s checked in from the Chipotle nearest our house so often that he was recently named mayor via 4Square. Apparently a cyber-mayor needn’t adhere to any kind of platform, and an honest one-man-one-vote election is needless. Just like in real life!

This makes me Chipotle’s First Lady. It’s the role I was born to play! Would there be a tinfoil crown and scepter, I wondered with glee.

Meanwhile, George mulled new Chipotle legislation. His first bill would outlaw the extra small serving. Burritos the size of a human head – that’s what we’re looking for. It is Chipotle, is it not?

He calls it the No Scimpasaurus Bill.

In retrospect, maybe his first act as mayor should have involved the parking situation. Like many Chipotle lots, the parking at the Grandview site is strictly kill or be killed.  Within minutes of his strictly imaginary swearing in ceremony, we witnessed a parking lot tragedy.

We watched through the window as a couple in a pick-up hit George’s new Harley. Less than 1000 miles on it. They just took a weirdly wide turn when pulling out of their space and bashed right into it.

Don’t they know who he is? What’s the point of pretend-governing a local Mexican fast food joint if the citizenry will wantonly damage your really nice motorcycle?

Of course, Mayor McCheese always had the Hamburglar to deal with.  Restaurant politics will kill you.

A Bigger, Hairier Vermonster

I’m in Vermont with these two – Ruby and Vivian: Vermonsters.

 But today, they are Ruby and Vivian: school children. Today Ruby starts third grade, and Vivian is officially a kindergartener. They are giddy! Ruby will be the envy of all with her well-organized pencil case, while Vivian kicks butt in PE with her smart new Hello Kitty sneaks.

Yesterday, while their parents were at work and they were left for the day with sketchy Aunt Hope, the girls were Ruby and Vivian: dog owners.

I’m very fond of dogs, and their golden retriever mix is a peach. An enormous, very strong, 18-month-old peach. The wee ones and I decided to take him for a walk, and Ruby recommended the trail – a path through the endless woods surrounding their home. This is not the first time she’s talked me into this. It has yet to end well.

These are the only humans on earth who could talk me into the woods, and as we entered – me with my two little nieces, one big and excited dog, and one bum foot – I wondered again why I am so prone to making bad decisions.

Last time, the catastrophes were entirely a result of my hotwired-for-carnage brain. On this second occasion, the crises were real.

Ruby took point, guiding us through the forest with Girl Scout skills. Vivian followed, catching baby toads, counting salamanders, and kicking colorful mushrooms. Sunny and I took the rear. At this point in such a journey, my head immediately fills with worst case scenario images. These would generally include inbred wood folk with a taste for human flesh, but with Sunny to guard us, that seemed an unlikely nuisance.

Instead I imagined how horrifying it would be if my sister’s new dog broke his leash and I had to chase him around the forest and into the lake while still keeping track of my wee girls.

Hey, guess what happened!

God damn it.

Picture, if you will, two tiny girls chirping, “Sunny, stay! Stay! Sunny, stay!” And one lumbering gimp hollering, “Here boy! Here boy!” And one boundlessly happy 100+ pound dog leaping and frolicking through the untamed wilderness. And lake. Let’s not forget the lake.

Finally I retrieved him with the oldest possible approach: lying. I promised we’d go find this big fat black lab named Moose who lives up the road and play all afternoon.

There was no playing in this dog’s immediate future.

I am staying indoors from now on.

I am cranky. Yes, cranky is my natural habitat, but I’m worse than usual today. Why? Three reasons.

1)      My baby is moving across country in a month. (Yes, that says 2253 miles.)

2)      My job smells like ass. Not the movie gig – that’s awesome, as always. No, the regular job. The one that pays me in money, as opposed to Arby’s coupons. That one totally blows.

3)      Filling out the third leg of my personal Trifecta of Sadness, I am back in an orthopedic boot. Sigh.

This boot is made for walking! Seriously, I literally cannot walk without it. This isn’t my first time in this particular boot.  Hell, it’s not even my second.

No, this makes my fifth tour in three years in ol’ Ortho, and how I have missed her. Gosh, it’s been almost a year since I last broke it out – cumbersome, ugly, covered in harsh Velcro flaps and straps and now, since my last episode in it (accompanying George to the filthy-as-ever Warrior Dash), also covered in mud. In case it wasn’t stylish enough!

Given my extensive exprience, I have some tips on how to look hot in an orthopedic boot. You cannot. Just give up.

How’d I do it? So, I was airborne on George’s new Harley, pullin’ a Knievel, when a monkey came out of nowhere, grabbed at the bike in mid-air, and …. That is to say, I injured my foot doing lunges. I have a stress fracture in my left foot from lunging. My left foot has been casted and/or booted  due to a car wreck, a serious running injury, surgery… and that most dangerous of all activities, walking forward and then bending your knees.

I am officially Mr. Glass.