A Room With A View

Today I looked out the window to find a little boy chasing around his chow dog with a baseball bat. Not that I was looking to find that. I don't know what kind of person hopes to see a dog being humiliated by a seven year old neighbor who probably still wets his pants. But I found it nonetheless.

The dog was tied to a rope and couldn't get away as the boy swatted and swayed clumsily with the bat. Maybe he was drunk too? Those suburban kids start early with the booze.

And I thought to myself, "Maybe this is what seven year olds do when they have no supervision."

But no. I look out my window a little farther to see that his mother is just standing there watching. Probably drunk, too.

The whole drunk suburban family (because families these days only consist of divorced mothers and their fatherless sons), enjoying their hatred of animals. That's what I call bonding, friends.

How to Deal with Endings

Typically, things end with a period (.) Grammar is so easy to construct an ending, a goodbye. All you need is a simple (.) or (!) and you're golden.
Ending a conversation is slightly more difficult. In American culture, you greet a person by saying, "Hey, how are you?" and then walk off without a response, because we have an unspoken agreement with people that our 'hellos' are also our 'goodbyes.' Similar to the Hawaiian 'aloha'.
But leaving a place, knowing you will most likely never see some faces again, what do you do?

My plan: Shout "period!" and "exclamation mark!" whenever you leave someone you will probably never see again. Even though they may have no clue why you suddenly got grammatical terrets, they will always remember you as the person who shouted nonsense right before leaving. And maybe they'll smile. And wonder who the hell was that kid?!

Nick Lancaster and 10 things about Facebook

Someone by this name keeps trying to add me as their Facebook friend, but I keep rejecting him because I am a cold, heartless bitch. But the thing is, I don't know you, Nick Lancaster. And if you want to be my friend, I need to know who you are in real life. I don't care if you've gotten dozens of other people to be your Facebook friend without knowing them. Those people are Facebook whores.

I am a genteel Facebook lady. I need to be loosened up by a few of those fake alcoholic Facebook application drinks.

And you would think that you would learn, Mr. Lancaster, by your 5th Facebook friend rejection that I do not want to be your friend. And this brings us to Facebook etiquette.

It seems that many Facebook and internet users, alike, do not have proper internet etiquette, so here are a few helpful tips:

1. If you are a teenage girl with emotional insecurity problems who turns to chat rooms for male affection, "sk8erdude181" is always a 50 year old man who lives with his mother. And your story will most likely be made into a Lifetime movie played by Melissa Joan Hart.

2. Wait an hour before replying to someone's Facebook message or you might cramp up and drown. Not an old wives' tale.

3. The Facebook "poke" is not for poking people you like. No one is sure what it is for. And like any proper poking safety, don't use it unless you know what it's for...

4. The Facebook "notes" application is not for your overly emotional therapy sessions. People only care if you write about them and their overly emotional therapy sessions.

5. No one likes PDAs in person. No one likes them on Facebook either. But we do find it amusing when you change your relationship status.

6. If you write something stupid on Facebook, everyone will judge you and/or copy and paste your words everywhere. Two seconds before you even wrote it.

7. If you have more than 18 different applications on your Facebook page, you should probably go on a diet. Or get a cooler hobby.

8. As a general rule, don't invite your friends to join lame Facebook applications. Unless you secretly hate them and this is your passive aggressive revenge.

9. If you are desperately lonely and needing attention, don't solicit yourself on a Network wall. Work the streets like any decent person.

10. Don't be like Nick Lancaster with his fake friend collection. Say "hi" to someone on the street, get their name, and then run home and add them as your Facebook friend.




...This has been a Public Service Announcement Sponsored by the Town Gossip, your anti-drug.

Happenings

I think someone was getting arrested in front of the courthouse yesterday night. How convenient!


In other news, the shoes that have been tied over a telephone wire on Main Street have recently been taken down. Does that mean the drug dealer has left? Oh, Kirksville!

Easter Bunny

Russell Stover rabbit with peanut butter filling
aches from the ear and stomach
in silent suffering.

Whole spring bunnies from the cover mock
the victim's partial existence
as I look away, impartial to pain.

Tiny, singing fingers snatch,
from my averted eyes, another
mortal wound.

Little sisters can be so cruel to animals.

The cigar man

Cigar men are the greatest of sorts, in my opinion. Not that I like smokers. Or cigars. But the sight of a man in a pot-bellied apron with a big, fat cigar drooping from his mouth saying, "See here, folks!"...fantastic!

Where might you see such a man? Does such a man even exist? He exists and he cooks like a god at the Santa Fe restaurant in Ethel, Missouri. The Santa Fe is only open two days a week, Saturday evenings and Sunday afternoons, but it's worth every gas mile to eat the cigar man's delectable home-cooked meals.

"Hey, there folks," the cigar man says with a jolly laugh as my family comes in to the small, brick room with picnic-style seating. "I made some noodles today so the fried chicken wouldn't fall off the plate!" None of us know what he's talking about, but we each bask in the presence of his unlit, wet cigar perched on that lovely little old man mouth of his. The antique train memorabilia on the walls behind him makes him another small town treasure in our eyes.

And does it ever really matter what that man is actually saying? He could be telling us, "I cut up some dead bodies and put them in the barbequed ribs we're serving tonight" and my family would just smile and eat every single bite we possibly could in order to keep the essence of every superb, possibly cannibalistic, taste.

If you also like food, and like eating food on Saturday evenings in small town locations, give the Santa Fe a call: 660.486.3334

Sitting in a Hamburger

Downtown Kansas City: A woman with unruly black hair sits in a store that looks like a hamburger. She sits behind the fry counter, the fry counter without fries in a store that's painted like a hamburger, yet doesn't sell hamburgers. She sells clothes. Bold clothes. Clothes that make statements and start conversations. Clothes that blind its customers with colorful happiness. Clothes sold in a store the color of sheer delight.

She smiles as her piled-curls nod on her head, matching her hamburger painted surroundings. Black and white striped spandex and crazy parachuting top that labels her as nothing less than a character. The stuff songs are made of. She is the muse of her own hamburger castle. Her little store with its yarn clothing racks and brilliant yellows, greens, and oranges.

The store is shaped less than a square, unsettlingly small, yet its brilliance cannot be contained.

The sun shines brightly on hamburger styled clothing stores.

The Radio Station

Everyone out there is looking for some moment of fame, I believe. And a giggling gentleman by the name of Corey received his moment of fame today. And perhaps Saturday afternoon also.

It all started with a name. Well, really, it started at the beginning of the story, so let's go there: Two friends of mine and I were stealing our own moment of local fame to interrupt an already-in-progress radio show at Kirksville's finest, KTRM, in order to hear our own voices laughing over the small niche of people who listen to Kirksville radio at 5:30pm on Saturday.

And running out of laughter and starting to look at each other awkwardly, we began to talk into our microphones about chocolate. Because who doesn't love chocolate? That kid from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory sure loved chocolate. You know the one I'm talking about...who jumped in the vat of chocolate and ate as much as he could with his little German hands? No? Well apparently neither did I since I couldn't remember his name.

So we asked our trusty listeners who this fine lederhosen boy was. And what did we have to offer in return? A chocolate date, of course! What is better than going on a date with three hot, chocolate loving ladies?

And this is where the phone rang.

"KTRM"
"Augustus Gloop" said the adolescent voice, laughter in the background.
"Oh great! So, you wanna go on a date?" I try to say in my most sarcastically sexy voice.
"...Yeah," the voice giggles with more laughter in the background.
And I start to speak again when I hear a *click* on the other line.

...Not bad enough.

So here's to you, Corey for knowing that the little German boy who swam in the vat of chocolate in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory's name was Augustus Gloop. And while I'm doing shout outs, here's to all the other adolescent boys who have called my show in the past as "Bill Murray" and "Alex Trebek." You may not have known what movies and television shows these actors have starred in, but good job finding something to do in Kirksville on all those weekends of yore.

On a Similar Note

I found a soulmate for the shopping cart lady today...wheelchair guy.

I saw him pushing an empty wheelchair down Jefferson Street around 2 AM on Saturday. The perfect match for two pushers. I think I'll wear a trashbag to the wedding if I get invited.

Shopping Cart Companion

I saw the shopping cart lady pushing her cart down Main Street today. I wanted to ask her where she got that cart. And why it always appears almost empty. But she looked like she was on a wanderer's mission--too busy to be disturbed with idle small talk.

Maybe I'll acquire a shopping cart someday, but I'll manage to keep my cart full, full of madcap treasure.

The Homeless Laundry Thief

This week, I'm afraid homeless people are going to steal my clean clothes.

Why, yes, this is an irrational fear, and yes, I do have an overactive imagination, but there's always some reasoning behind my insanity. Although sometimes minimal. And there's "reason" to this as well.

I live in an apartment complex with an open laundry room. By open, I mean that it doesn't lock, so anyone can get in. And it's also not attached to my building, so I have to walk across the frozen pond that is my parking lot to get to it. I think most laundry rooms that belong to Four Horizon Realty function this way, but because mine is located next to a probation center, I tend to think the worse of it. No offense, laundry room. You do an okay 75 cent wash.

Yet, there's a large utility closet in the laundry room that I like to open every time I do my laundry because I have realized it is big enough for a grown person to sleep in and I've seen enough slasher films to always consider checking it before I decide to be like the movies and turn the lights off and refuse to look up from my basket of clothing as some psycho maniac comes at me with a meat cleaver. I only find a broom and a few lint balls. But the thought is still there.

A few weeks ago, my paranoia got worse when I saw a strange lady with matted hair and several layers of clothing come out of the laundry room pushing a shopping cart of clothes wrapped in a tattered black garbage bag. At least, I hope they were clothes. And, of course, my first thought was, "The homeless have found out about the warm, elegant "Hotel Utility Closet!"

************************************************************************************

I can see it now: I'm sitting in the utility closet, looking out to the rest of the laundry room through the white vent slats on the door, waiting for someone with my size to come in to do their laundry. Footsteps approach. I see red converse shoes crowding around a mound of dirty outfits. "What size shoes are those?" I wonder as I try to judge by the shoes whether I can fit into the shirt. I hear quarters clank and the door shut behind them. Cautiously, I peek out to discover the laundress was a size ten. Shit. Why won't someone with a size five do their laundry today?

*************************************************************************************

Smiling to myself and my irrational thoughts, I look at the utility door knowing no one is going to pop out and steal my clothing. But, I still take a mental tally of what I put in and what I took out.

Somehow, a few socks are always missing. Perhaps?

Free Refills

Uptown cafe, the forgotten cafe,
serves men in plaid and work boots,
in quiet morning light.

Blinds drawn and decorum raw,
it sits as the hide-out for locals
who emerge before noon.

I, sitting in noiseless chatter,
wonder how many have stared
at my Truman sweatshirt.

Undisguised.

Waiting for the phone line to clear
to pay with credit card,
my hand shakes from my 5th cup.

Jittering away to my own turf.

A day in the liquor store

Our small town of Kirksville, Missouri is made up of many things from half-crazed elderly ladies talking to themselves at the Hy-Vee cafe to various college-related parades in which the cloak of "college town feel" is brought out to dry. But a noticeable part of Kirksville exists in its alcohol consumers, college and blue collar alike.

I'm not necessarily the type to hang out in a liquor store all day...
but there comes a time when you have nothing else to do. And it just so happens that I had a friend who worked at Westport Liquor store, the creme between Kirksville's hospital and the dingier neighborhoods that encroach Truman State University.

For as long as I've lived in Kirksville as a college student, I've felt the tension between liberal college student and working class Kirksvillian. While working in Hy-Vee's meat department as a meat wrapper, I heard my coworkers comment on those "gay college kids" and how they're "perverted" and "wrong." I've been talked down to by Walmart dressing room attendants who chastise our "sinful" ways whenever the next PRISM dance approaches.

I've never truly understood this great divide, but I've tried for four years to figure out why Kirksville was the college town without the college feel.

And so on a lazy Saturday afternoon, I walked into Westport Liquor, easily distinguishable as a college student with my studious gaze and purple pride glow to observe my fellow town's members at a location where one cannot hide their habits.

The first person to enter the low lit, alcohol-lined store was a gentleman in his late 40s. I use the word 'gentleman' loosely since he had the appearance of a man who never actually used the term in his life. He swaggered in with a coating of dirt over his clothes and camouflage hunting cap and said "a pack of Marlboro" to my friend Jess, the diligent vice seller, as he counted all the change in his wallet. He gave me a wink and handed Jess his money. A pennies and quarters exchange. He walked out and a lady in a hurry rushed in and bee-lined for an aisle as if she knew the layout in her sleep.

She was dressed in a tight fitting t-shirt that showed every roll and curve of her body. "Chica" on the front of her shirt in rhinestones. She walked quickly to the register, where we were standing and glanced out the window to her rusting white Beretta where a little girl with uneven pigtails looked back from the front seat. "Just the 'Beam?" my friend asked. The woman nodded, paid, and left as quickly as she came. After she left, Jess turned to me and explained that the woman came in every day to buy alcohol and once accidentally left her "eviction notice" on the counter.

While there was a lull in customers, Jess told me about the man who came in several nights before, so drunk that he went to the bathroom on the floor, between the refridgerated beers and coctail mixers section. Or the numerous times she's felt uncomfortable while waiting on some male who stares for too long or tells her too much information about his life as a construction worker and how nice she'd look sitting in his '98 Ford Pick-Up. She'd look real nice.

I thought about the people who had come into Hy-Vee, only able to buy the saran wrapped cheese that our meat department put out especially for food stamp customers. I smelled the distinct smell of encrusted body odor as they leaned in to ask how much a porterhouse steak would cost, knowing they wouldn't be able to get it. Were they like the man who spent his last penny on a pack of cigarrettes?

I thought of my meat department co-worker who was pregnant and only working a few days a week while her abusive boyfriend worked for minimum wage as a hotel clerk down the street. And just the other day was seen at My Bar taking shots and smoking. Was she to be the alcoholic mother that left her daughter outside while she fed her addiction?

Was this the effect that poverty had on small towns?

College towns like Lawrence and Columbia have drunken frat guys getting trashed on the weekends. And so do we, granted they may have excellent vocabulary in the process. But Kirksville does not have 24 hour diners to prove its college loyalty. We chased out the only "vintage" clothing shop in town leaving Christian charity thrift stores where toothless women scavenge for a sequined Christmas sweater. We only have one true college-like coffee shop, a sign that this most certainly is not a college town. Our sense of community has a dual relationship.

There's Truman State University. And there's everybody else.

For some, Kirksville has division and resentment between those that come in with their liberal thinking and "loose morals" and those that would rather Kirksville be a retirement home for the country Catholics and blue collar employees whose Hollister jobs are being outsourced. College kids are the nuisances voting in their elections and politicizing their town only to leave in four years for jobs that pay twice the amount of money they make. Yet, we also support their economy. And so this cycle of love hate continues.

I found evidence of this when I thought back to the summer I stayed in Kirksville to work. Everyone at Wal-Mart, the social center of small town life, smiled and said "hello." People looked happy. The permanent residents had control of their own town. Yet, there was no money to be made with the rest of Truman gone. And I felt the tension grow and the looks turn more disdainful as August approached and Walgreens put out its "Welcome Truman Students" sign. The demoralizers were back. And I was just another college student.

Thinking of this daunting information, I sighed with relief when I saw the next customers come in. An elderly couple buying wine for their anniversary dinner. They were followed by two frat guys buying a 24-pack of Budweiser.

Ah, familiar territory. Something I understand.