June 27, 2006

Generation Gap?

I’m walking to the bank yesterday and the strangest thing catches my eye. It isn’t a new thing. On the contrary, it is something I have seen many, many times – so many times that this time it looked peculiar. There was a group of African American young men walking toward me. They were wearing the baggy pants; I can’t understand for the life of my how that fashion statement has remained so long. It looks like Bert the chimney sweep when he was dancing with animated penguins in the movie Mary Poppins. Now here’s the peculiar part: one of the young men was clearly holding his johnson. Just walking down the street with his package in his hand. I couldn’t take my eyes off it. I normally don’t pay attention to such vulgarities as they are quite commonplace in our ever so hip-hoppy MTV society, but with my staring came the realization that this guy isn’t holding his johnson, he’s holding his pants up! The poor kid’s waistband was at weiner level, and what appeared to be some ishy Michael Jackson crotch-grabbing gesture was in fact a desperate attempt to keep from losing his pants!

I ask you, why would anyone want to wear clothes that don’t stay on the body of their own accord? Is it a black thing that I wouldn’t understand? Am I too old to appreciate current fashion trends and statements? Am I just unable to get down with my bad self? Am I not fly? Am I a total nerd because I wear clothes that fit? Or are the fly completely ridiculous?

June 26, 2006

The Season Of Black Cats and Beer

I read the blogs, I laugh at the blogs, I surf the blogs, but do I write the blogs? Oh, I know I can make up an excuse like, “my dog ate my blog,” but you’d never believe me. I won’t give any excuses today, but will simply state what is going on in my life.

Boyfriend and I went to an Indian Casino on Friday afternoon. I use the term “Indian Casino” (that would be the “feather, not dot” variety of Indian) to distinguish them from the mobster casinos in Las Vegas. While there is nothing on earth that compares to the casino life in Las Vegas (except maybe for places like Atlantic City and Monoco and many other places famous for gambling that I’ve never visited) the Indian Casinos at least give you a chance to take a chance, even though it is usually in a most unsophisticated style. I’m not really clear on why Minnesota Indian Casinos will not allow roulette tables but Wisconsin Indian Casinos do. OK, I’m not even sure if that is the case, but the Indian Casino closest to our house does not offer roulette, which is very, very sad. I love roulette. I get big adrenaline rushes when I play roulette. I feel like a glamorous movie star when I sit at the roulette table drinking and smoking and tossing my chips around like nobody’s business. (Note to self: next trip to Vegas, wear strapless evening gown and long white gloves to prove even more glamorous. Note #2 to self: buy strapless evening gown and long white gloves.) Instead of watching a little ball find its way into a little, numbered cubby on that spinny wheel thing on the table, Boyfriend and I watched the spinspinspin of the video slot machines. Carnival of Mysteries is my favorite these days. It makes really cool noises, even if you only win five credits. (One time I won 15,000 credits and the cool noises went on and on and on like a dream.) We finished the afternoon with a wonderful trip to the Indian Casino buffet where we had a two-for-one coupon. All in all, it was a very inexpensive, somewhat exciting, gastronomically satisfying diversion from regular life.

This coming weekend is, as you all know, the biggest summer party weekend of the year. The 4th of July has never been that thrilling for me, even though I am proud to be an American and I am legally able to drink. (Didn’t congress pass a law making it mandatory that one drink at least twelve cans of beer and three Long Island Ice Teas throughout the course of the holiday weekend? I don’t make the rules, I just follow them.) However, it is a nice, long weekend, and for that reason alone I can celebrate. I will spend the weekend with my entire family, blowing up the likes of a Ken doll with firecrackers, watching those poopy-looking ash snakes growing on every flat surface in sight, and enduring the prickly pain of sparkler sparkles landing on my hands while I do the dance-with-sparklers, which is done by everyone under the age of sixty-five at one point or another during the holiday weekend. This is also the biggest pot luck holidays of the year, and I have to decide what and how much to make.

In addition to the massive eating, drinking, and otherwise blowing things up, there is a craft show in which I will be showing my various works of art – or rather, various trinkets I pass as art. Lots and lots of things to do to get ready for that. Boyfriend and I like to attend these shows because there are just so many people to meet and talk to, not to mention lots of money to be made. I haven’t actually made all that much, but I know there is lots and lots of money being exchanged by other people. It’s taking me quite a bit of effort to gather up all of the things I want to show, in addition to all of the other things necessary when showing at an outdoor craft show, like a canopy, tables, chairs, and a cooler filled with those mandatory 4th of July beers.

I’ve been so busy lately that I haven’t had time to know the news of what’s going on in the world. Is there anything exciting happening? When I’m shopping at the grocery store for the ingredients of my 4th of July potluck food items I’ll pick up an issue of the Weekly World News and get all caught up. Until then, my pets …

June 22, 2006

E-Coli Runs Rampant

As I was cleaning the master bathroom the other day I thought about my ex-sister-in-law. I always think about her when I clean the bathroom – any bathroom. Not when I’m using the bathroom, just cleaning it.

It’s a really long story; suffice it to say when my brother announced that he was getting married I so sexistly thought, “maybe now that he’ll have a woman in the house the dishes will get washed once in a while, the bed will get made once in a while, the carpets and rugs will be vacuumed once in a while.” I couldn’t have been more wrong. Serves me right for assuming all women are compelled to keep house and most men aren't. In fact, one of the reasons my brother fell in love with this woman was because she didn’t put a lot of value in the “superficial practice of presenting a home for the approval of others.” More simply put, she didn’t care that he was a slob because she was one too.

The women in my family are plagued with a specific gene which generates the need to present a neat house. We know there are good feelings that come from keeping a house – nesting, per se. We value our homes and want to make them comfortable for our families. We keep things clean to keep the rodents and bugs outside where they belong. We incorporate cleaning, laundry, and cooking into our weekly routine. It’s just as natural as breathing.

However, my brother’s wife came from a completely different type of family. They didn’t put a lot of stock in the value of, say, a stove that doesn’t have five years worth of grease baked onto its surface.


One day the ladies (me, my mother, my sister, and my then-sister-in-law) were talking about housekeeping, for some weird reason or another. I think we were trying to subversively turn my brother’s wife into someone who could take pride in her home; in other words, make her into someone she wasn’t and never would be. Anyway, we were talking about the parts of cleaning we liked least. My then-sister-in-law said she hates to clean the bathroom, which nevertheless, she manages to do on a quarterly basis.


Then came something out of her mouth I simply couldn’t believe. She told us that she cleans that little area of floor behind the toilet with … the toilet brush! Not a toilet brush used solely for the purpose of reaching behind the toilet, the toilet brush, the same one used for scrubbing my brother’s disgusting skid marks out of the bowl itself! I thought we “clean” girls would just die, while my then-sister-in-law looked at us wondering why we were dry-heaving. Needless to say after hearing her confession I never used their bathroom unless it was absofuckinglutely necessary.

So now, every week when I’m cleaning a bathroom, scouring the tub, polishing the chrome, and wiping down counters and mirrors, I think of my ex (thank God)-sister-in-law and wonder if she’s still flicking that poopy toilet brush all over her bathroom floor. Oh my God. Oh my effing God.

June 20, 2006

Three Times Married, And Now We Know Why

Over twenty years ago a friend of mine, who worked at Minnesota Public Radio, escorted me to the station’s annual employees’ Christmas party. I didn’t listen to public radio much then, so I’m not really sure how many “celebrities” were actually there. However, when my friend pointed to a guy at the bar and said, “that’s Garrison Keillor,” I was immediately star struck. I had heard him on A Prairie Home Companion and was impressed that I was worthy to be at the same party as Mr. Keillor. We went over to say hello, and immediately I wanted to kick him in the balls. He was arrogant and none too discrete in letting me and my friend know that we were actually unworthy of being at the same party. I never listened to A Prairie Home Companion again.

For years I boasted that I met Garrison Keillor, and that I knew he was a complete boor. No one ever believed me. Such a creative fellow, making up those wholesome stories, being as funny as he is – how could he be a boor? This is not to mention the fact that Garrison is a hometown boy, originating from Minnesota – what could be bad about him?

Today I read an article written by him, and I simply must share some of his endearing quotes. Perhaps now you’ll all believe me, after twenty-odd years of my telling you so, that there should very well be a boycott on Powder Milk Biscuits.

“I am flying to Atlanta to speak at a benefit luncheon, and I dislike benefits because you have to endure other people’s gratitude, which can be exhausting. This sounds ungracious, but it’s true.”

“The benefit luncheon in Atlanta is not a happy time. It is an organization of Very Rich People Helping Wretched People Without Having To Be In The Same Room With Them, and it’s full of alpha males of the sort you see strutting around airports with cell phones clipped to their ears … and gushy women who tell you they adore your television show …”

“… and the president of Very Rich People gives me a hideous Lucite plaque in gratitude for my generosity, which I deposit in a trash bin at the airport, and I fly home to Minnesota.”

What a self-righteous turd.

June 16, 2006

Tracking With Loose Associations

I do believe I’m having a stroke. It’s amazing how multi-task-oriented I have been so far today. I’m tracking time-sensitive projects accurately, and filling in the down time with the necessary chores to be done in anticipation of our company this weekend. What gives? I’ve been keeping up a noteworthy pace all day. I can’t explain it other than a stroke. It just has to be.

It’s hot here in Minnesota. As Matthew Broderick’s character in Biloxi Blues would say, “it’s Africa hot.” (By the way, Sarah Jessica Parker is so not worthy of Matthew Broderick. He is just so adorable and she is just so … angular. I’m pretty sure Matthew is completely mad about her great boobatude, but those legs … those hands … hag material if you ask me. Check her out in another fifteen years. I guarantee she will not age well. Poor Matthew. He deserves so much better.) Today it got up to ninety degrees with a humidity level of about 85%. Maybe it’s the heat that caused my stroke. Heat stroke. Yeah, that’s it.

Something I did today that was a huge mistake: I made an online order to a company in West Virginia. Ever since I placed the order I’ve had that John Denver song playing endlessly in my head. You know, “take me home country roads, to the place I belong. West Virginia.” I used to love John Denver, when I was about fourteen. These days I don’t need that song in my head for ten minutes much less for six hours. Goes to show what playing a record (yes, I'm from the era of vinyl) nonstop when you are a hormonally charged young teenager will get you – in middle age you will be tormented by the music simply for placing an online order. What strange connections our minds make the more we fill them with information. I wonder if, when I’m eighty-five, something obtuse will trigger the song Whole Lotta Love. Wouldn't that be marvelous?! Led Zeppelin is much better to have pumping through a brain than John Denver. I wonder if, when I’m eighty-five, Robert Plante will make me feel mushy "down there."

But I digress. My productive day is in preparation for the weekend of nonstop Father’s Day celebrations. Saturday Faux-Ma and Faux-Pa will be dining with us for Faux Father’s Day (according to Faux-Ma, celebrations don’t count unless they’re held on the day), and Sunday we’ll be dining with my family. Dads and dining. This is what will fill my weekend. Well, I guess it could be worse. Couldn’t it?

June 15, 2006

Intellectually Challenging, or Challenged?


I ask you, could there be an uglier man than Jack Black? I can't believe people pay money to see this mutated missing link on the big screen. Not only is he ugly, he's obnoxious. I bet his favorite food is that mashed potato-corn-chicken-gravy-cheese bowl thing from KFC, and he probably talks while he eats it and chunks are hurled out of his mouth back into the bowl, which he re-eats. He's a neanderthal and shouldn't be allowed to venture outside of a cage. I hereby announce a Jack Black boycott. Join me, won't you?

June 14, 2006

Am I A Tightwad Ingrate?

Warning: Greeting card holiday coming up – Father’s Day, June 18. This Sunday we gather ’round and pay homage to the man who taught us to operate a bicycle, automobile or both, taught us how to paint and pound nails into a board, taught us “do no wrong and fear no man,” and taught us that it’s okay to stare at the carnival freaks because that’s how they make their living.

I owe a lot to my dad in addition to the hundreds of dollars I’ve borrowed from him over the years, which by the way, I’ve paid back. He has given me advice, both sound and bogus, that has somehow stuck with me throughout the years. He has shown me that the human species can overcome gargantuan obstacles if properly motivated. He has proven that tuttering over unimportant things is indeed a valid way to pass time. He is my dad, and I’m proud to have inherited his compulsive tendencies as well as his nose.

With the adoration I feel for my father, you’d think I could come up with an appropriate Father’s Day gift for him. Nothing. Not a single thing has sprung into my wildly creative mind. So, for the first time ever, I clicked on one of those internet ads that says, “Popular Father’s Day Gifts.” Here’s what they suggest:

1. Collapsible propane grill - $189 – He has a grill; budget says no more than $25 for something made up by the greeting card industry.

2. Father/son grilling aprons - $28 – Stupid, as I’m not his son. Again, over budget.

3. Short-sleeved pique polo shirt - $72 – I said, $72!!!! For a shirt that is worth $10? Get serious. Still over budget.

4. Sony Handycam Camcorder - $1099.99 – Well, I don’t think I have to justify passing over this suggestion. Way, way over budget.

This list went on, but I couldn’t bear to read it. I came to realize, if these are “popular” Father’s Day gifts, then I am just about the worst daughter ever because I’m so cheap. I should be flogged for having such lofty principles at the expense of a man who waited up worrying about me when I was out with the boys. I should be ashamed that I’m not living the second half of my life giving everything I have to the man who produced such hearty little sperm just so I could exist. What is wrong with me?!

But then I realized that the suggestions on the list aren’t really popular Father’s Day gifts, and I’m beating myself up over nothing more than a marketing ploy. Sure, Dad gave me all he’s got. In return, he’ll get a small trinket of affection every June for the rest of his life. It’s what he’s come to expect, and it’s something I’m more than happy to give. Maybe a nice gift certificate to Culver’s. He loves their frozen custard that is oh-so-good for his high cholesterol. Enjoy, Dad!

June 13, 2006

Warning: Mad Cow Crossing

Six months ago my grandmother died from Alzheimer’s disease. The reason I mention it is because now that Alzheimer’s disease has been spotted in the family, I must take heed.

I came across an article that gave a dozen warning signs to the possibility of Alzheimer’s. Adult children are supposed to apply these red flags to their aging parents. As self-involved as I am I mostly worry about myself, and went through the list to see what symptoms I may have.

The article said if you notice three or four symptoms, action should be taken.

1. Weight loss or weight gain. My answer: yes. I’ve been having a steady weight gain since I turned 35. Slower metabolism and disdain for physical activity? I think not.

2. Neglects personal grooming. My answer: yes. I don’t always floss my teeth, and I certainly don’t take the time to exfoliate my skin the way I should. Could my lack of glowing skin be a sign that I’m losing my mind?

3. A home that’s not clean. My answer: yes. I noticed a cob web floating above a lamp the other day, and there was some lint on the stairway carpet. I used to attribute these to a 40-hour work week and an active social life. Not any more.

4. Spoiled food in the refrigerator or insufficient food in the house. My answer: yes. I noticed a correlation between this item and item number 1 and decided that my weight gain coupled with insufficient food in the house are not due to the fact that I’m eating the food faster than I can buy it, but due to the fact that I have plaques and tangles.

5. Piles of unopened mail or unread newspapers. My answer: yes. Again I attributed my 40-hour work week and booming social life to the scads of unread magazines in the house. Yikes – little did I know…

6. Missed bill payments or changes in finances. My answer: no. This doesn’t ease my mind, though, because Boyfriend is the one who is completely anally-compulsive about paying bills. If it were left up to me, we’d probably be living without water or electricity, judging from the red flags waving from the previous five items.

7. Change in judgment. My answer: yes. For example, I judged Mustang Sally and Sweet Melissa to be good friends, true friends, and friends to the end. I now judge one as a psycho pig bitch from hell and the other a back-stabbing manipulator. Until today, I thought my new judgments of them were well-informed and accurate, but now know that Mad Cow is setting in.

8. Quits activities he or she once enjoyed. My answer: yes. I used to enjoy sucking my own toes and drinking from a human breast. No longer.

9. Friends or neighbors notice a change. My answer: don’t know, don’t care.

10. Unusual physical problems. My answer: yes. Under-developed chest.

11. Can’t manage daily tasks. My answer: no. If they mean can I pee by myself or can I put on my own socks, then I guess I’m doing all right in this item. However, if they mean exfoliating myself, paying bills, and vacuuming the lint off the stairway carpet, I must again answer “yes.”

12. Unable to get help. My answer: no. I’m perfectly capable of getting help, but I’m sure this capacity is quickly diminishing with the erosion of my brain.

I answered “yes” to eight out of twelve warning signs. I’m doomed. Is Boyfriend ready to take on the duties of care-giver? When the day comes (and it will) that all I can do is stare blankly out the window, I hope Boyfriend will at the very least keep that window clean.

June 09, 2006

We'll Be Back, After This Brief Commercial Massage

Years ago I thought Daphne Duck was creative and funky, and at the same time very educated and knowledgeable. She was an elementary school teacher before she worked in civil service. She had been married twice before I met her. Daphne, I reassessed, was not funky, but flakey. She couldn’t maintain relationships or jobs. She was also a hypochondriac.

For as long as I knew her she was on the hunt for a doctor beau. She denied that being Mrs. Dr. was her goal, but she never dated anyone who wasn’t a doctor. Even the doctor with one hand caught her fancy, simply because he was a doctor. How come he only had one hand? Because the break-up of his previous relationship left him so distraught that he actually cut off his own hand and mailed it to his ex-girlfriend. Daphne had full knowledge of this when she started dating Dr. One Hand. Only someone as desperate as Daphne would date a guy who views self-mutilation as a romantic gesture. Her relationship with Dr. One Hand ended after a few months; however, she was not afforded the special delivery of one of his body parts.

Eventually, after sampling many, Daphne found her doctor. A psychiatrist. And he puts the “fun” in dysfunctional. He’s a really nice guy and everything, but has crippling abandonment/separation issues. That works out well for Daphne as she can be relatively sure that he will never leave her. So Daphne is set with her well-to-do shrink of a husband who will never leave her, her big house in the suburbs, her condo on the north shore of Lake Superior, a cleaning lady, and social status that she could never dream of were she not Mrs. Dr. Don’t Leave Me.

I believe Daphne spent all those years doctor shopping in order to never have to work again, and Dr. Don’t Leave Me was perfectly satisfied with a stay-at-home wife. But after sixteen years of schooling, two careers, three marriages, and over half a century of life experience, she wanted to go back to school. Normally I would think good for you! Expand your mind and learn new things. But she wanted to go back to school to become something. She needed more than the love of a neurotic man and the easiest life she could ever hope for. This woman, financially secure as a result of her third marriage sans pre-nup, wanted to become … a masseuse. OK, she called it a massage therapist. It’s all the same, isn’t it?

She went to school for a long time to learn this art, getting tripped up along the way due to some of the pesky ailments that collectively label her as hypochondriacal. Somewhere during her schooling we stopped having lunches once a month. It came to my sending a Christmas card once a year, without reciprocation. Until one year …

In response to a Christmas card I sent Daphne and Dr. Don’t Leave Me, she sent me and Boyfriend an invitation to her open house. Her graduation-from-massage-school open house. Unfortunately, Boyfriend and I were unable to attend the soiree, and I’m sure Daphne was offended. I made several attempts, following our regrets to her party, to acknowledge her accomplishment with a complimentary lunch or dinner. She failed to return my calls and e-mails.

I came across Dr. Don’t Leave Me not too long ago. I inquired as to Daphne’s well-being, and said I hadn’t heard from her despite my invitations. He dodged the subject of her rudeness, but did inform me that she has a few clients now, who she accommodates in one of the many spare rooms of their enormous house in the suburbs.

It strikes me as very strange that someone would choose a career in massage therapy. The thought of strangers laying their naked bodies in front of me and expecting me to rub my naked hands all over their naked bodies is, to say the very least, quite distasteful to me. I would have to touch the hairy bodies, the obese bodies, the anorexic bodies, the zit-riddled bodies, the wrinkled, old bodies, the diseased bodies. How absolutely disgusting.

Thoughts of Daphne came to me when I saw a commercial for some local trade school advertising that even I could become a massage therapist in just a matter of months. I wondered how Daphne is managing the tactile sensory overload. How is Dr. Don’t Leave Me handling the fact that his darling wife has her menopausal paws all over fully naked men who expect a happy ending? I’ll never know, but that’s probably for the best. All of the physical contact Daphne has with her clients is surely exposing her to a variety of delightfully contagious conditions. I’d hate to be a mere tabletop distance away from the crabs and scabes that jumped from Mr. I-Need-A-Massage-Because-My-Wife-Doesn’t-Understand-Me onto the oblivious Daphne Duck. Ick.

June 06, 2006

Summer Fashion Tips

Men: don’t wear black socks with shorts.

Women: Don’t let your bare, chubby self ooze out of your jeans or tops for all to see. You don’t need to wear a moo-moo, but you also don’t need to imply that moo-moo is your entire vocabulary.

June 04, 2006

Ladies And Gentlemen, Children Of All Ages

I’ve been blessed with a love for the circus. My grandpa loved the circus, my dad loves the circus, my siblings and I love the circus, and love for the circus has been passed down to my nephews as well. I was taught at a very early age that if I ever wanted to escape life, to disappear completely, I should join the circus. I must have known that information would become useful some day because whenever things get a little too difficult to bear I still toy with the idea of becoming a fancy pony lady with a big feather plume on my head.

Today I came across
this article, which made me spit in disgust. An animal rights group is actually taking the circus to court for their alleged abuse of elephants.* Who the hell sues the circus? Don’t they know that the people in the circus are nonexistent? They’ve escaped life! They’ve disappeared completely! They come into your town, sweep you off your feet with their spectacular performances, and leave your town in the middle of the night when no one is watching. Who would even think to sue them? Who else but the animal rights people?

Apparently members of the Humane Society of the United States, the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, and the Animal Welfare Institute feel the elephants should no longer be included in The Greatest Show On Earth. Among other things, they feel the chains used on the elephants’ legs are cruel and unusual punishment. I don’t know, seems like a good idea to me. I mean, if they want to keep these giant animals from wandering off, I think shackles would be pretty effective. It’s not like the elephant trainers are cutting the legs off the elephants to keep them from roaming.

Also, if these activists really loved all animals, why are they focusing only on the elephants? They don’t seem to be concerned about the lions trained to not chew when there is a perfectly delicious human head inserted into their mouths. They don’t bother with the horses that are trained to prance in circles within the circus ring to such an extent that the poor things can’t ever walk in a straight line anymore. What kind of animal rights activists would exclude these animals from their law suit? Prejudiced ones, I think.

Seriously though, what has become of us, that we point a judgmental finger at the circus? It’s been the only show that has consistently entertained people of all ages throughout many generations. Where else will you see death-defying feats of magnificent proportion? Where else will you see wild animals behaving like domesticated poodles, and domesticated poodles behaving like Las Vegas dancing girls? Nowhere but the circus.

And so to the animal rights activists, for threatening the only escape I’ve held dear to my heart for lo these many years, I cast upon ye the Ringmaster’s curse: May all your days be circus days!**


* It is a known fact that the elephant is regarded by circus people as good luck. They even wear bracelets of braided elephant hair too keep the good luck with them. Why they would abuse such wondrous beasts of good fortune is beyond me.

** When addressed to common people, this phrase is actually known as the Ringmaster’s blessing, bestowing upon the audience a lifetime of excitement and joy. When uttered to a circus person, however, the phrase is regarded as a curse inflicting upon him a lifetime of very hard and dangerous work. When I say it to the animal rights activists I mean to say, “may you be run over by a tricycle driven by a bear in a conical party hat. And when he looks over his shoulder to see what he’s done, may he pedal backwards to run over you again.”

June 03, 2006

The Owls Are Not What They Seem

So I’m sitting here, totally blocked in my ability to create anything, writing or otherwise. I’ve been procrastinating by doing laundry, rotating my fall and summer clothes, and throwing away all the stray, snotty Kleenexes I left laying around the house in my sickly state of late. While I’m somewhat relieved to accomplish some of the things I normally procrastinate on, the restless right side of my brain just can’t seem to get going.

I attribute the blockage to my recent communications Sweet Melissa. How I despise her for having so much power over me, or at least the right side of my brain. Come to find out, Sweet Melissa is a vindictive, bitter old woman who wants nothing more than the adrenaline rush of power. All that sugar smack she spreads around is but a ruse, a pied piper-like attempt to get people to follow her and behave according to her teachings. Peace and love are the teachings. Power and annihilation are the aspirations.

She has been fighting Mustang Sally’s battle with me for a few months now. I was fool enough to fall into her trap. I argued right back with her even though the situation had nothing to do with her. God, am I stupid. Well, Sweet Melissa has now shunned me, and is probably on the path of getting other people to shun me.

It’s a very odd feeling to have someone I don’t even like shunning me. Is it humility? Has she succeeded at putting me, Ms. I-Know-What’s-Best-For-Everyone-If-They-Would-Only-Listen-To-Me, in my place? Nah. She’s playing my game. She thinks she knows what’s best for everyone too. Problem is, she preys on the psychologically defunct and can easily get them to follow her lead. With someone as strong and mighty as I am, she can merely shun. A feeble attempt at saving herself from the wrath of me. Who can blame her?

Being shunned isn’t so bad. I’m free of the hypocrisy. Even though I’ll be watching Sweet Melissa and her toady Mustang Sally from a distance, I’m free from their evil plot to get wandering souls to worship them as goddesses of knowledge and love. With me out of the way, Sweet Melissa can retract the claws from her fluffy kitty paws and go back to being the back-stabbing church lady she was born to be.

Ah, there. I feel much better now. Screw the housework. I’m off to the page!