Wednesday, October 26, 2005

CRANKY TIME

Lunchtime in Ole Miss. OK, I should be smarter than to have any expectations about eating at a Waffle House. But I just wanted some Atkins-friendly bacon & eggs, and they tend to deliver that sort of thing. (Note to self: the 3-day-on / 4-day off Atkins diet is an excellent weight-gain regimen.) I have favorite Waffle Houses in several states of Our Great Nation. This one will not make the list. I will fucking graze in the median beside the trash-littered highway tomorrow before I go back to this particular Chateau d'indecision

But come on, it's Waffle House: this is the kind of place that appeals to people who cannot judge a good pinot noir. And pilots. Pilots, too. (Who am I kidding? I had to look up "Pinot Noir" to be sure I was spelling it right.)

But my dining companions. In the next booth, actually. This chick was, I'm sorry to use the term, a fucking bitch. Any other term (Leona the Fucking Hun? Adolpha Fucking Hitler? Karla Fucking Rove?) is a soft, candy-assed, Where's Elmo simulacrum of reality. This woman was a black hole of ignorance and negative energy. We're talking absolutely world class tornado-bait Whiskey Tango. One rued the loss of the perfectly good air used to sustain her.

Oh, and did I mention that she was the mother of two fine young boys? Ages 5 and 8, I'd say. By the time lunch was over I earnestly wished for their release into loving foster care, preferably after the fiery car crash that claims their lobotomized, chain-smoking eggplant of a mother while they're babysitting themselves on an early drunken Saturday morning. OK, sorry. But she was that bad. I endured, during my lunch & sudoku puzzle (I could not suffer the crossword as well), an angry tirade on every subject, to include drinking capacities and restraining orders and vaginal warts. All to the lovely soundtrack of a "mothering" style that stopped a white trash cooch hair shy of outright abuse. She could hardly have done worse if she actively hated her children.

The two boys evidently had different fathers, and she talked of her upcoming marriage, so there are at least three penises that have become snarled in Harlot's Web. (Not that I could generate much sympathy for any guy who found her to be a better companion than Ye Olde Right Hande.) But I felt like kidnapping the boys.

*Deep breath.*

My walk back to the hotel included tangoing thru a Kroger's parking lot, where I counted something like 30 shopping carts strategically abandoned where they could block the maximum number of parking spots (my contempt for the people who cannot pick up after themselves only slightly trumping my contempt for those who walk right past 20 shopping carts in the parking lot only to demand that a cart be waiting for them 50 yards later when they get inside). Oh yeah, and a swaggering young executive double parking his Corvette across two handicapped parking spaces while he shucked his best basketball jive into the store for a pack of smokes.

I guess I need--the world needs me--to go back to bed.

5 comments:

Lizzie said...

What a rant! I love it.

Hold on a minute while I write down "One rued the loss of the perfectly good air used to sustain her." That's brilliant and I plan to use it daily. There's almost always at least one opportunity a day to use a phrase like that.

ok, I'm back. Wow, that woman sounds very classy and like a great mother. And nothing like enjoying lunch with a side of discussion about vaginal warts. Lovely!

Why do I suspect there have probably been more than 3 penises snarled in Harlot's Web. Oh, I'm so judgmental. I haven't even met the woman.

p.s. Am I the only person in the country that does not play sudoku?

wstachour said...

I closed the lid on my little Powerbook and breathed deeply into the plastic hotel ice bag (provided in every hotel room for your convenience) and equilibrium returned.

Then, off to read the blogs of fabulous people and all is again well with the world!

Sudoku. Yeah, it gets under the skin. Between that and a crossword puzzle I can actually complete (after Wednesday in the NYT I'm pretty much lost), I find my resolve to not come into contact with any part of the USA Today weakening a bit. I'll still never buy it, but when the hotel provides it for free... and there's that sudoku puzzle... and a do-able crossword... DAMNIT, I'll take one!

So much for principle.

Lizzie said...

I can never get past the Wednesday NY Times crossword puzzle either. Just one time I finished a Thursday puzzle and felt like the smartest person in the world. I was this close to putting it on my fridge.

Random fact that you just made me think of: I think I might have been in USA Today last week. They randomly asked me a few questions and filmed me but I don't know if/when they published it.

wstachour said...

So you were maybe written up in there somewhere?

Proof positive that my summary judgment that that tabloid rag contains nothing of quality is not entirely accurate!

Did you check online to see if you were there? Did they ask you about legal things or school things or blogging things or what? A shame if they didn't at least send you a transcript or alert you of your copy.

My mother-in-law, bless her heart, saves all the crossword puzzles from our Appleton paper (after she cuts them out and scans them and blows them up to make them easier to read! I then get the originals) and bundles them up for me week-by-week. They're quite easy ones (though not shamefully so), and I always have a bundle with me in my computer bag or my flight bag. It's morale-building to be able to quickly bang out a crossword puzzle in a few spare minutes!

Even so, It's a long habit of mine to rummage like a pack rat through the slag heaps of newspapers in airport terminals in search of a local and interesting crossword. Now I've added sudoku to that obsession. Add blogging to this, and soon I'll be operating under a W-like "time deficit," bankrupting my life's clock!

Heather B. said...

That? Was fucking awesome.

And I don't play sodoku either, lizzie, but someone got me a sodoku puzzle book, so I guess I'll start.