Illuminations

As time continues its relentless march, we learn how to adapt to new situations and surroundings (or we do not, which is another, much sadder sort of story). And over the past few months I’ve learned a few survival techniques as an adult border in this home.

Small things. Wee compensations and artful dodges that have sprouted organically, even subconsciously rather than being the results of any intentional, intellectual planning on my part.

Take today, for example. Wednesday. You see on Wednesday, my familial landlords have an even more specific schedule than usual. While Wednesday joins Saturday, Sunday and Tuesday in its ritualistic To-Do list, Wednesday provides your scribe with more at least quasi privacy than any other day of the week. They depart by 11AM and do not return until approximately 3PM.

Ahhhhh….

For the first couple if not few weeks, I would accompany them on their rounds today as well as on the other days that involved any leaving-of-the-house. But realizing that dad was still capable of driving (at least in the daylight, on surface roads) also made me realize, again subconsciously at first, that I was nuts. I should stay home. And be totally, blessedly alone.

I have adapted. I have learned thanks to a surprisingly well-tuned survival instinct to wave them a fond goodbye and, their car cresting the horizon, get down to some rare business of my own.

Nothing crazy. Just a long, hot bath followed by scrupulous personal grooming. Maybe cracking open a beer or three. Even hanging around naked for an hour or two (though “hanging around” in this case might be an unfortunate choice of phrase). While thusly cleaned, groomed, cocktailed and naked the only Kryptonite my Superman must avoid is the living room, with its front-facing wall nearly 100%, thinly draped window. Because believe me when I say there is no one or nothing in the immediate area that would inspire my admittedly exhibitionist tendencies.

The only trouble with this brief brush with personal freedom is that, like most good things, it comes to an end. So I sign-off now in preparation of that ending…

Specifically, my few but faithful Illuminaughties, it's time to get some clothes on.

But the experience has also produced an unexpected byproduct: a new appreciation of, even wonderment over my parents’ relationship.

Their utter devotion to one another is something I’ve been quite aware of since childhood, but it turns out I had to have a fair amount of relationships of my own to grasp what a rare and beautiful thing these two people share.

One of the very first, very memorable events to bring this unassailable togetherness and loyalty to my attention happened when I was barely in Jr. high. At a time and in a culture when it was not unusual to see my friends suffer purple asses and even black eyes at the hands of their own fathers, my dad never laid a hand on me…until the day I made his wife cry.

Who knows what happened that day; I think I had come home from school and responded to something mom said with enough disrespect that she had a melt down (please bare in mind she was in menopause at this same time, while I was in the midst of a hormonal storm of my own). When dad got home from work he kicked open the door of my bedroom, literally, used language I didn’t think he even knew and did his best to tan my skinny arse.

And I remember the post-whuppin’ epiphany as clearly as if it had happened yesterday: hey, that woman may be my mother, but she’s that guys’ girlfriend.

By now you’re thinking “Yeah, so what. That could just as easily have happened in my house back then.” But that little story isn’t the point, it was just the first of many tip-offs that these people are first and foremost a couple, and everything else comes in second (and NPR recently did a piece on a book or blog called “Bad Mom” that suggests that’s the way it should be; that the adults romantic relationship should never be subservient to anything outside it, including the kids).

Since their retirement from their separate careers, there’s been almost nothing “separate” about them. Except for one hour every day, after dinner, when she goes upstairs to watch TV and he stays down listening to talk radio. I’ve come to think of it as the Walking Hour because, with her up and him down, there’s nowhere for me to be but out. (OK, once a week he goes to lunch with the one or two buddies of his that are still alive, and she goes to the beauty parlor or her card club, but beyond that and the Walking Hour, their companionship is constant).

In our current age, when such nearly non-stop unity would surely be labeled “codependent,” when couples expect to maintain a relationship with each somehow remaining autonomous, when it’s common to hear people complain about their Ex because “they had to be up my ass 24/7,” my parents are a genuine anomaly. And by all accounts, a happy one. For the past 53 years of marriage, anyway.

People from broken or otherwise dysfunctional homes often look upon the failings of their parents as probable explanation for their own relationship problems later in life. And now I finally realize I can probably blame my parents for mine.

That kind of love, after all, is a tough heritage to live up to.

Today I made some effort to be useful around here. I’m learning that any confusion over when I should do the work v. when I should back away and let one of my parents handle it themselves is mitigated by my father standing next to something while holding a screwdriver. Limply. This morning, that something was the front porch light.

The existing light worked, but it was weathered, worn and, like everything else in this house, old. Mom wanted to replace it. Vince The Neighbor (also an octogenarian) encouraged this desire by sending his “electrical contractor” son by with an estimate just short of $200 (which even he acknowledged was ridiculous for the job at hand). So at that point I insert myself into the porch light proceedings.

I had taken them to Home Depot over a week ago to buy a new one, but whenever I’d suggest installing it, I’d hear “Oh no. No need today. It’s not like there’s any rush.” or “Oh no. Not right now. It’s too cold today.” and so on and such forth. But today was unmistakably The Day, as evidenced by dads threatening display of the screwdriver mentioned earlier. He even dragged out the step stool, lest there be any doubt.

I’ll condense this: up went the light. Took some doing, as the guy who put the last one up (read: dad) did one helluva’ hack job on the mounting plate. The kicker here is that he got all passive aggressive on me when I insisted on shutting down the circuit breaker before I did any wiring. “Well, I just use the black tape to keep the wires apart rather than doing that” and “Isn’t that more trouble than it’s worth?” and etc.  Essentially, while I’m being justifiably allergic to hot wires, he’s apparently afraid of the breaker box. And I’d soon find out why.

The soul of this home’s electrical system must have been installed very soon after Edison got his first business license. There’s crap in that box made out of glass, paper and pieces of the true cross. But I mastered the beast and no lives were lost in the name of porch light improvement. Yet everything I did in the process was supervised, distrusted, second-guessed and eventually accepted only with a begrudging grunt.

Sheesh.

Shortly after declaring Mission Accomplished on the porch, Vince The Neighbor appears for job site inspection and doesn't like the exposed sliver of hole to one side of the new, smaller mount plate. I can't tell him "That's because, Vince, about 30 years ago, my dad chopped a hole big enough to mount a fucking New York streetlight on that wall" so I just sigh and promise to patch it (which, for the record, I was planning to do anyway). Then the phone rings. It’s my aunt from across town and, bizarrely, she’s asking for me. “Oh Illuminaught, am I taking you away from your computer?” “That’s okay, aunt, frankly I wish more people would.” “Well, I’ve got a new phone and I’m trying to set it up, but for the life of me I can’t figure the damn thing out.” “I’ll be right over.” “Are you sure?” “I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

So here we are, handsome young me and a baffled, bouffanted woman in her late 70’s pouring over the set-up instructions for a phone/answering machine system. And once again, everything I do along the way is suspect.

I help her record her voice greeting, but have to play it back no less than five times until she believes it’s actually recorded. I show her how to check messages and delete them, how to use the speakerphone and where to look for Caller ID. And all the while she’s grinning a bit like I must be making all this stuff up. I showed her how to turn on the answering machine, but had to call her line from my mobile to prove it worked. I inputted her speed-dial numbers as well, but had to have her call my folks using that feature to convince her of the soundness of my programming. Once again…

Sheesh.

 
Now don't let me leave the wrong impression: my family (and their neighbors) are Good People and everyone concerned was genuinely grateful when the jobs were done. They just have a knack for making the doing of those jobs as joyless as possible for the doer.

Is it that old smartass Karma again?

With very few exceptions my life is now populated with older, rather cranky people who only trust their own ways of doing things, right-or-wrong, and don’t take kindly to any deviations, even in efforts to help them.

Now I know how my most recent Ex felt.

There are many things that I would like to say to you
but I don't know how...
And maybe,
you're gonna’ be the one that saves me.

My response via The Police:

I resolve to call her up a thousand times a day
And ask her if she'll marry me in some old fashioned way
But my silent fears have gripped me
Long before I reach the phone
Long before my tongue has tripped me
Must I always be alone?

Every little thing she does is magic
Everything she do just turns me on
Even though my life with her was tragic
Now I know my love for her goes on.

The Final Word courtesy of NIN:

Beneath the stains of time
the feelings disappear.
You are someone else,
I am still right here.

What have I become,
my sweetest friend?
Everyone I know
goes away in the end.
You could have it all,
my empire of dirt.

I will let you down.



I will make you hurt.

Once the temperature crests the 70-degree mark, the simple truth that you live in the landlocked mountains of the northeast is no impediment to making the fireplace mantle boil-over with fake seashells and emblazoning the front door with festive “Welcome to the Beach” cling-film.

You can just imagine Christmas. But before we get there there’s Halloween and Thanksgiving to contend with, and the former just happens to be mom’s birthday so man-oh-man, you should just see Halloween at this house. It’s like half the plastic factories in China developed food poisoning (say, from freshwater eel) and blew chunks all over Illuminaught’s ancestral estate.

It’s certain that The Daisy thought me a misanthropic Scrooge, if that’s not redundant, at least before we moved in together. Because even Christmas—that High Holy Day of All Decorative Crap—was only acknowledged in my own apartment with a small artificial “tree” that could be unplugged, folded-up like an umbrella and stuffed back into the guest room closet on January 2nd.  It was even “pre-lit.”  Rock on.

Of course after we moved in together, at those times of year when she understandably wanted to Deck The Halls, she learned for sure I was a Scrooge. And my attempted, growled explanations aside, I doubt she ever fully appreciated why.  For as in Ebenezer’s own story, I am proof that most Holiday Joy and/or Decorative Disorders are caused by traumatic past experiences.  Childhood experiences that I happen to have the bad karma to be reliving at this very moment, Halloween being a mere three weeks hence and counting.

Now let’s be clear about this: we’re not talking about tasteful, opulent-yet-subtle Martha Stewart Living decorations here. We’re talking about the close-out bins of the Christmas Tree Shoppe, K-Mart’s finest holiday flare; we’re talking about those balsa wood mailbox signs that say things like “Best Witches” in October, “Reindeer X-ing” in December and “Bunny Trail” by, and well before, the first Sunday after the full moon on or after March 21st.

I’m talking about more plastic than all the tits at the strip club, more chintz than a Laura Ashley trunk sale and more wires, bulbs and plugs than a rich man’s death bed.  And all of it has to be lugged down from the attic or up from the basement. Then (and this is important) back again.

And look who’s doing that lugging now.

To my utter amazement, those boxes and bags are heavy! After the first few trips up-and-down with the Halloween booty, I was convinced even Hannibal’s elephants would rebel.  Can you perchance to dream how many filmy, flimsy, third world synthetics have to be assembled in one container to be heavy?  A shit load is the answer you’re looking for.  A shit load.

But it makes her happy, and I suppose that’s all that counts. It has also forced dad, for these past two decades of his retirement, to stand up and move his arms and legs every couple of months (an exercise, as you now know, that I have inherited and I wish he didn’t look so pleased about it).

I’m just sayin’, that’s all.

Next time you meet, fall in love with and ultimately cohabitate with someone who displays something less than enthusiasm about “putting up the decorations,” a visit to his or her mother’s house may be all you need to gin up a little understanding.

You could even develop, given an extreme case like my own, something like sympathy.

Best Witches,

~Illuminaught

Now these things are called “smartphones” because, for at least the first several days of ownership, they make a person feel irretrievably dumb. There are more bells and whistles compressed into less space than a kindergarten talent show, and I’m pretty sure that every time I access one of those applications I’m being charged harder than a Pamplona tourist in July.

But it’s sick.

Now I don’t have to sit at the computer to discover that I have no email.  Friends and associates can ignore me wherever I am, at any time of the day or night.  I’m informed of every absent email on four different accounts, every text you don’t send me, every tweet I don’t care about and every piece of reliable spam that comes my way. Each identified by it’s own unique alert tone that I almost never get to hear. I can surf the dubya-dubya-dubya from the porch, the bed, the toilet. I can download and listen to sucky music (although for that specific task I am and will remain loyal to Mac), watch videos I don’t want to see, take crisp 3.2 megapixel stills of meaningless objects and even shoot long-form videos of events I’d just as soon forget.

And of course, more.  Maps I won’t need until I host a cable survival show, GPS directions that snidely imply I should be going somewhere, MS Word and Excel to prep for the client meeting I don’t have scheduled and scheduling software with which to keep track of my unoccupied time. How could I have put this off for so long?

Thinking back to those halcyon days of the mid 80’s—when only show-offy assholes had mobile phones and those phones were the size of pro-grade power drills—I clearly recall thinking “Who would want a phone tied to their ankle all day?”  After my inevitable seduction, I likewise remember thinking, “What’s all this other crap? I just want a phone.”   Now I’m thinking…

anybody wanna’ buy a gently used desktop computer?

Now granted, even with a “full function QWERTY keyboard” typing remains a challenge on the 3G, and it will be a long time if not forever before I write something approaching this character count on a keyboard the size of an open matchbook. But hell kids, they do sell outboard, larger keyboards that one can plug right in to a handheld device. And inelegant as it may be, that's almost a solution.

It’s here.  The Convergence.  The orchestrated collapse of all our personal technology—from stereos to telephones, from computers to cameras to televisions to credit cards to even tape measures and books—into a single device that puts more sophisticated computational power into your pocket than was installed on the first few space shuttles.

Now you just have to decide whether to sell your ass to Comcast, or Verizon.

And hey, The Convergence?  I’m not making that up.  I’d post a link but screw it.  Google it yourself.

From your smartphone.

It’s not like you’re calling, texting or emailing me, anyway.

OK shit, what’s that noise it’s making now…?...

Just had a tremendous nostalgia rush. 

I went to something like the modern equivalent of our neighborhood corner store to re-stock on my various vice-taxed consumables, and there was this little kid on premises.  A fat little kid of about nine or ten who weighed approximately what I do, but with highlights in his hair so he was stylin’, you dig?

I had spied him as I walked in, tubby kid re-stocking his own tubby vices, prowling the Little Debbie™ and TastyCake™ display with a small armload of candy already gripped against his peewee football-jerseyed chest.

I’m done at the beer cooler in a heartbeat so up to the cashier I go, green money in hand. And there he is again: the only other soul in the store smack-dab ahead of me in the check out line, counting out dimpled fistfuls of change with which to pay for his delicious booty. He had mostly quarters thank goodness, but still the lady behind the counter rolled her eyes and shot apologetic glances my way.  But I just smiled and was happy to chill as I watched the process.  An unusual emotional posture for Type-A me, as anyone who knows me can forcefully assure you.

It took me back, that’s all.

Back to the days when “the corner store” really was, and a seven-year-old could buy a pack of smokes for his mom or dad because the store’s owner damn well knew the whole family.  When there was a penny candy display that reached higher than your arm could stretch and you were in luck on a summer’s day if all the blue Popsicles weren’t already gone.

I’d get my grape Nehi and sour apple gumballs.  Timmy Fallon his RC Cola and Reese’s Cups.  On the rare flush day I could also spring for Mallow Cups and maybe even a pack of Topps® baseball cards, just for that powdery, thin, near-flavorless but somehow addictive tile of gum that came with them.  Timmy, or Joe, or Frankie or anybody else could have the damn cards as far as miniature Illuminaught cared.

And how was this bounty paid for?  You guessed it.  With the pennies, nickels, dimes and occasional quarters that come a kid’s way as allowance or gifts, buttressed by whatever silver we might scrounge around the house that we thought our adults wouldn’t miss.

Personally, I had little luck in the “wouldn’t miss” department.  My father could (and still can) account for every red cent in his house.  And I’d hear him ask mom, “Where’s the darn quarter I had on the hall table?  That was to pay the paper boy.”  And I’d cower upstairs, but just a little; all the while secure in the knowledge he would soon abandon the mystery and just put another darn quarter on the table.

Besides, I had spent that quarter “up the store” in the friendly company of that very same paperboy.  It was all a wash in the final analysis to my still forming, slightly klepto brain. And Timmy wouldn't mind.  He had his own paper route.  He was loaded by 4th grade income standards.

That store is long gone, and so is Timmy.  After six years of somehow not getting killed in the Marine Corps he was finally out and on his way to see his hometown sweetheart for the first time in many months when a speeding car full of drunken teenagers ran a stop sign and struck his motorcycle.

Nostalgia.  Unfortunately, it sometimes brings along more than just the G-Rated, freckle-faced memories.  But I’ve made a decision, thanks in no small way to that not-small kid who was in front of me at the register an hour ago.

I’m going to Timmy’s grave for the first time since his funeral those many years past.

And I’m going to leave him a quarter. 

Maybe even a cold RC and some Reese’s Cups.

My dad, of all people, would want me to make good on my debts.

Follow me on Twitter, and don’t worry. The best thing about that application is its 140-character limit (and brevity is indeed the soul of wit):

http://twitter.com/TheBosha

Oh, how the Right Wing throws a “tea party” to rival even those held in Alice's hallucinogenic Wonderland. Using fear, blatant mistruth and a little pocket money to gather the naive and nutty in spirited protest against their own best interests.

Healthcare Reform, especially a robust public option, is parroted as “socialism” as if the designation were a true synonym for “Stalinism.”  But I can only wonder in a kind of anxious awe as these largely working-class folks do the bidding of the rich and powerful status quo:  do they see their local fire department as “socialist?”  How about their police force, trash collectors, traffic lights and the guys that come around—if too rarely—to fill the potholes? 

Is their Medicare and Medicaid “socialist?”  Is the Social Security income so many of these protesters rely on "socialist?" Do not the Veterans Administration, Public Education and the Unemployment Insurance checks that millions of our fellow citizens now cling to as their best, last defense against homelessness fit neatly under the same scary label?

No.  Of course not.  Not to these people.  Because these so-called entitlements have been there as long as the majority of them have been alive.  And therefore, to these tea party puppets of the wealthy, these social programs are as American as Lite beer, Monday night football and too much ketchup. 

So in that same vein, it is my hope that every child born in the United States this year and all the years that follow will grow to see public, universal healthcare the same way.  Only as “socialist” as our implied duty to chip-in with all other legal, taxpaying citizens of our national neighborhood.  And as “American” as anything can get.

Apple pie included.

In short, there is no free lunch.

Let’s put aside the somewhat petty and predictable frustrations that go like the right wine with living under someone else’s roof, and thus under someone else’s rules. Especially after thirty years of owning my own homes or at the very least being Master of My Own Domain in all those pre-marriage and-post divorce apartments.  Instead, let’s take today’s example alone, baring in mind that there are still seven days in every week, employed or not.

Today, Illuminaught’s mother asked, “Illuminaught, I want to paint the kitchen wall.  If I do the bottom, will you do the top?”  Of course, I said, knowing full well that a wall that measures-in at a mere 4 vertical feet above the wainscoting was not a two-man job and I would handily do it myself.

She did not say “today.”  More importantly she did not explain that she had decided, with a DIY Home Improvement knowledge base roughly on par with that of a goldfish, that the correct thing to do was to STRIP THE FUCKING WALLPAPER prior to painting.  And she started this process all on her own while I was working the computer and the phones and dad was napping unawares on his living room recliner.  By the time I caught her in flagrante a good portion of the lower wall was already in tatters.

Have you ever stripped wallpaper?  If so, did you ever do it a second time?  And if so, if so, have you ever considered consulting a psychiatrist to get that masochism under some degree of control?

Firstly, while that paper has hung there for at least fifteen years, it was still in near-pristine condition.  As wallpaper is wont to do, some minor shrinkage had occurred over time leaving dime-thin gaps at the seams.  Tiny gaps that could have been corrected with readily available products made for that very purpose or even skimmed lightly with surgical dabs of Ready-Patch™.  Then this papered wall could have quickly and cleanly become a painted one [and for those of you playing gotcha’ regarding the dangers of water-based paint on wallpaper, hold thy flames: this paper had a waterproof coating.  And I ain’t a’skeered of oil bases, for that matter].

Secondly, there is but one wall in this late 19^th Century home that is drywall, not plaster.  Yup.  That one.  So we’re talking about two layers, not just one, of paper glued to paper glued to…PAPER.

Thirdly, godamnit mom!

I took over, naturally.  What was already done could not be undone.  But I’ve had to explain that even after the extended agony of stripping the wall now has to be sanded, skimmed with plaster and sanded again to repair the damage done to the surface by that stripping and that this process is going to be difficult (at least for me), messy, more messy and slow.

This is not dementia, thank god. It was just dumb. But a restless little kid kind of dumb. After a certain age we are all children again.  And unless you want the same scratches left on your costly widescreen LCD that my girlfriend’s kids left on mine with their little toy trucks, you’d better keep your eye on those children.  Pretty much all the time.

As of this very day, I have been living here in my childhood home with my parents for exactly one month.

I often tell myself that I’m going to “get better at this” as time goes by.  But I also told myself the very same about the challenges of my last living arrangement and the “better” thing never quite materialized.

“It’s temporary.”  That’s another thing I tell myself now.  Yet as the days accumulate and the needs of these ancient and loving, remarkably healthy but increasingly frail people become more and more evident, I wonder…

If I could leave, would I?  Or more to the point…

When I can leave, should I?

Conditions today are Sunday, with a steady drizzle weeping from gray, overcast skies and a chilly snap in the air.

Perfect.

Ideal conditions to robe-up and retrieve the Sunday Times in its wet blue baggie from the front lawn, brew a couple cups of coffee, toss the kids some cereal bars to gobble in front of their cartoons and hasten back to bed. The bed. The nest. The Queen sized Tempur-Pedic with its passion-patterned sheets and that one creature feature that can never, ever be replaced.

Let the boring complain. Allow the Me Too Masses to pine impotently for sunshine and other meteorological circumstances more suited to beaches and bike rides. We will have our Sunday. Our Sunday morning that always lasts well into Sunday afternoon, weather permitting or not.

We will sip coffee and smoke cigarettes and pour hungrily over The New York Times section by section (except the Sports section, which at best serves as a breakfast tray in the unlikely event that any breakfast is desired. If it is, I will poach her eggs and serve them—near raw to her specifications—with dry toast and juice).

We will read aloud to one another those articles that particularly strike us.  Should the other be already engrossed, we will point out specific pieces and say, “Read this when you have a chance.”  We will transition, as AM itself transitions to PM, from coffee to more intoxicating fare.  We may take a shower.  Perhaps, as the television's Sunday pundits mumble softly in the background, we will make love.

Sunday mornings, you see, are not over until one of us breaks the spell by brushing our teeth and/or the children can wait not a moment longer for their lunch.

I miss those Sunday mornings the way one would mourn the passing of a dear, dear friend. Which, in very real way, it is. Still, even with the 1-month anniversary of my reluctant exodus being tomorrow, I stumble about like a man who has lost his right arm. And come a Sunday morning, that sensation of a ghost limb is especially, maddeningly acute.

But I do not skulk and wallow in anger and sadness that those Sunday mornings occur now only in memory.

I celebrate their memory. Or more honestly, I am learning to.  Slowly.

Because tears over what we once had are only tears of greed.

While being grateful that we had those Sunday mornings at all in this too often lonely life is the only Grown Up thing to do. Sadly, many people never will enjoy such a reward at the end of each and every week.

And some of us, the lucky ones, never will again.

Possibly the funniest manipulated images since the advent of Photoshop. 

Enjoy, and happy Friday.

This rabbit hole just keeps going deeper. 

Over the course of the last few weeks I have found myself amazed and not too delighted to note that my adoptive home base of Jacksonville, Florida is by far the single most featured location on the reality show “Cops.” Episode after teeth-grinding episode of trailer trash rednecks and crazy ghetto crack heads that I used to enjoy watching—from a safe distance—as a sort of exercise in urban anthropology is now a near nightly reminder of just how far I’ve come, and in what direction (they don’t call it “going south” for nothing).

This is no exaggeration, believe me. Every freaking night there’s a “Cops” episode, sometimes even three episodes back-to-back, that takes place right here. There is obviously such an abundance of Jacksonville footage that even the majority of the quick clips used as the show’s lead-in (you know, as they play “bad boy bad boy, what cha’ gonna’ do when they come for you”) were shot, yes, in Jacksonville.

I’d be better off in Scranton; at least my home towns’ TV presence is (1) fictional and (2) no less an award-laden comedy sensation than “The Office.” Minneapolis, called home for a couple years, was where The Mary Tyler Moore Show took place. The bedroom communities of southern Connecticut, where I slept for some 14 years, are the favored domicile locations for shows like “Mad Men” and movies like “Revolutionary Road” and New York City, well, forget that noise. It would be easier to list the shows that don’t take place in New York.

But now I’m in Jacksonville. And Jacksonville’s got star billing in “Cops.” 

Today, I open my news browser to see the featured link: America’s Top 10 Unhappiest Towns, presented by Business Week magazine. I click. I read. Fears confirmed: Jacksonville does in fact make the list, and in a respectable 6^th place, too.

From today’s local headlines, and it’s hard to pick just one I can assure you, we have “Gunman Steals Toilet Paper from Elderly Couple.” Now that’s harsh. You can be elderly or out of potty paper, never both.

I hope the production team for “Cops” got the no-doubt terrible aftermath of that particular Jacksonville crime on tape. We’re sure to find out later in the production cycle.

Funny thing is, I used to think those “Smile, You’re On Camera” signs you see at all the convenience stores and gas stations down here were referring to security cameras, not those of the TRU-TV network. You live, you learn…

And with any luck, if you live in Jacksonville and end up on “Cops,” at least hope you're wearing a shirt at the time. Oh, and if you can manage not to have a girlfriend/baby momma with blackened eyes protesting your innocence while you’re being cuffed, so much the better.

After all, it’s one thing to fit in, quite another to join the herd so completely you disappear.

Want. Need. 

Which? Which indeed.

Consumer Confidence, as announced by the Associated Press today, is at a record low. Seems people in perpetual fear of losing their livelihoods just ain’t very fast n’ loose with the green, and while I’ve seen little in the way of that mainly mythical “disposable income” for a few years now, I can track my own Confidence as a Consumer and see that, for once, I fit in beautifully with the crowd.

Take just the period of time encapsulated over the past two weeks. As already mentioned in a prior post my sons were here for ten days. I spent money on food, gas, food, food and, for one night, food and lodging that I would not have had to spend had they not been here. And more food. And there were the airline tickets to buy in the first place. But by the same token I spent considerably less money than I would have liked to. I would have liked to do a full day at one of the many Orlando theme parks with them; instead we just drove past mile after mile of giant, festive and increasingly imploring signs, much to the dismay of my youngest two. But as I had to explain, even if we had the time (which we didn’t), I didn’t have the money (which I didn’t).

One day during their stay the Daisy and I took them to one of the bigger local flea markets in an attempt to chase some cheap laughs. I knew that there they would find any number of must-have trinkets and they did, yet I was surprised when the two-hour excursion concluded with just two campy, Disney character CD cases, a single, sturdy wallet and one funky $3.00 belt in their shopping bags.

Even kids are pulling their cash pretty taut these days, and my offers to buy the stuff for them fell on largely plugged ears. When I insisted on buying my eldest a souvenir tee-shirt from one of the colleges we visited, he nearly clothes-polled me on my way to the bookshop cash register.

I bought it for him, anyway. But when I suggested doing the same at the next school he absolutely forbade the notion, saying something along the lines of “I’ve already got plenty of tee-shirts, dad.”  Geeze. Is that my kid, or my grandfather?

During those college tours, I said not Word One about the money it would take to actually attend any of them: we’ll hang ourselves off that bridge when we come to it and I fully agreed with the Ex that his decisions shouldn’t be based on well-meaning sensitivity to price. Yet when I did slip and happen to muse on the vast difference in tuition for resident and out-of-state students (which was a truly astonishing several thousand dollars), he leapt in with gusto, cutting me off before I could finish the whole, honestly casual thought and rattling off the exact numbers for tuition, room and board and etc for students of different residency and/or scholarship status as if he had been taking detailed notes.

Clearly taking notes he had been, just not with a pencil.

Lest I be accused of putting my thumb to the scales, this doesn’t give Florida any leg-up when it comes to his choice of school anyway, as a well scattered family probably provides opportunity to claim residence in a number of states. Five that I can think of right now. Two if a parent has to reside.

From one vantage point, I’m delighted that my kids are mature, unselfish and perceptive enough to be aware of a…shall we say ‘fragile’ money situation, especially given the comparative level of privilege they were used to not so long ago. Hell, they still have cooler mobile phones and more heavily tricked-out iPods than I do.  From another view, however, I feel something not-quite-but-close-to shame when I hear one of them castigate the other for wanting to order something “expensive” from the already not-fancy restaurant menu as if the difference between a six and an eight dollar entrée might break the family budget.

But I’d have a better chance of banning rock n’ roll than curbing coin-counting of that sort. Ebenezer Scrooge is America’s new role model, with fashionable ladies-who-lunch in NYC and LA declaring themselves “Ressionistias” and ultra high-end merchants like Barney’s and Bergdorf’s actually being so gauche as to include prices in their advertising.

Forefend. 

And was there a single TV news outlet this past holiday season that didn’t do a human interest featurette with little kids telling Santa that they didn’t want much this year? That daddy lost his job and mommy worked two and they might have to move into grandma’s house and there were “poor” kids that needed stuff more than they did, anyway? Has it really come to this?

All that tear-jerk pandering that puts me in mind of depression era propaganda in its attempt to bestow a bravely tattered nobility on an entire citizenry at the very curb of homelessness due largely to their own bad decisions—up to and very much including the Evil Clown they put in office 8 and again 4 years ago. It only makes my hackles snap to attention and my fist clinch even tighter on those pennies and nickels because yes, it really has come to this.

Heh.

“Pennies and nickels.”

“Count your pennies and nickels, the dollars can look after themselves.” “Let’s nickel and dime this deal so we can come to terms.” Since childhood I’ve thought of phrases like that as metaphors; genteel and self-consciously quaint aphorisms that danced around the crude edges of talking about money. “Real” money. Which among Polite Company in any socio-economic sphere simply wasn’t talked about. Wasn’t. Now, I’ll bet more than one cat fight has erupted over who paid less for what at Henri Bendel’s. Now Ruth Chris sends me coupons (coupons!) for $19.99 steak frites. Now, towards the end of any given pay period, if I need a pack of smokes or just about anything else, pennies and nickels it is.

The first couple of times my boys came to see me down here we did the waterside restaurant crawl, we dined and souvenired with immoderation in Saint Augustine, even schlepped out to the little fishing village of Mayport for some fresh seafood at a place I‘d heard about but had never been to. This time...
 
I actually cooked. 

Like with the oven and shit. 

At home. 

I made a meatloaf that, while nobody complained, turned out a little dry and dense. I also stuffed and roasted a whole chicken which turned out great, if a little small to yield enough meat for my own portion. Oh well, the cook miscalculates, the cook suffers.

Breakfast was mostly made at home as well. My signature Egg-in-a-Hole, like it or not. This created some amusement when the boys recalled how in more Confident times “breakfast” often translated to my handing them $40 and directions to Einstein Brothers Bagel Bakery. Even in these zany days, when any joy that Blue Ray players and flat screens are selling for a 5^th of last year’s prices is mitigated by rampant commodity inflation, do you know how many Eggs—and Holes for that matter—can be purchased for $40?

Of course that’s bad news for Einstein Brothers AND Best Buy. Good news, I guess, for your supermarket’s dairy department and absentee fathers who can manage to remember which side of the frying pan faces up.

It’s not all bad though, this belt-cinching as necessity for most and fashion statement for some. Who could have predicted, at long last, a backlash against bottled water even among the trendy? Or, to answer my own question, that penny-pinching would itself become trendy? Who knew what a damn yummy, moist n’ tender chicken I could roast? I stuffed it with apples and onions so the skin could crisp while the meat beneath remained succulent, served it with drip pan-grilled asparagus and side salads and it was so awesome I may even do it again soon. My meatloaf, while okay, needs a little work: a lighter hand with the kneading and a less conservative stance on roasting time should about fix it.  But imperfections included, it made a helluva’ fine sandwich the next day. And that, just as in turkey, is the most important thing about meatloaf, isn’t it?

Once again the boys’ departure was marred by a delay. Only an hour, but still, airport delays always suck. I can’t go with them to hang at the gate because they, by virtue of being over 10 years old, are considered “adults” by the idiot airlines. And just as I was asking if they had any money to help kill the time I realized that I, Big Daddy, had by that time little but pocket lint to offer. Luckily yes, they had money. Bright kids, not blowing all their dough at flea markets and college book stores.

Or theme parks.

Want. Need.

Pick one.

My personal brand of Consumer Confidence takes a stand for the new reality. As a Consumer, I am completely Confident that this economy and thus this country has been flogged, fucked and nailed up wet. I am confident that over the course of this year and well into 2010 more people I know will lose their jobs and I have a better than average chance of being one of them. I am Confident that I and millions of others will never again see their investments at the levels they enjoyed barely a year ago. I am Confident that if I ever so much as see one red penny, one single, solitary goddamned cent from that Social Security Ponzi scheme I’ve paid into for over 30 years I’ll be so surprised that I’ll shit myself.

Then again, by that time they will have pushed the eligible age to 84-1/2, so if I make it at all I’ll probably be shitting myself on a regular basis anyway.

See?  As it turns out I am confident after all.

In fact, that’s my new Superhero name: CONSUMER CONFIDENT.

So full-price payers, Starbucks suckers and other evil doers beware, I’m watching. 

Wherever there is premium cable where basic would do, I’m watching. Whenever a take-out dinner is ordered when there’s a perfectly good can of beans in the kitchen, I’m watching. Whoever goes out for lunch when they damn well could have brown-bagged should know…I’m Consumer Confident. 

And I’m watching.

By way of full disclosure, I went out for lunch today. Even us Superheroes step out of character now and then. In my own case, maybe a little more now than then. In truth the Daisy and I eat lunch out every workday. But this most commonly involves ordering one sandwich and splitting it (she was doing the same with sharing one drink for a while, but on that practice I had to put down my foot). Point is, while waiting at the register to pay for our one sandwich and two (small) drinks, I saw a cookie out of the corner of my eye.

It was a cinnamon cookie.

And damn that cinnamon cookie looked fine.

It was $1.39. But all I could think about was the next time I’m buying that 12-pack of Pabst Blue Ribbon and the dewd looks at me across the counter and says “You’re $1.39 short, buddy.”

Then I’d have to get the Miller High Life. 

Fuck the cookie.

Want. Need.

Which?

Yes. Which indeed.