Old Ladies, Gangbangers and Toxic Dog Gas. Ghosts of Thanksgiving Past. Letter from the Editor, Represent Entertainment Magazine. Now I think I’ve said this before but it’s important to start at the beginning….I do not do obligatory things anymore….I did that…I was young….now I’m old…..period. For years I did the obligatory Thanksgiving crap…dinner with people you don’t like….food you don’t care for….relatives full of crap…etc etc…..Once I hit my mid-thirties I decided life was WAY too short to give up a day of “Thanks giving” for things I certainly wasn’t thankful for. So lets take a trip back…about 12 years….I had just bought my house in Young Arizona from the 70 year old woman next door to the property. I did not like her….at all….but she laid on this guilt trip about having Thanksgiving alone and how great it would be to have a houseful and blah blah blah and like an IDIOT, I fell for it. And just when I thought I hated HER, I had a big surprise coming. Thanksgiving, 12 years ago. Now as city folk don’t know a damn thing about rural living AND our concept of winter is a wee bit different here in Tempe versus Young, I sent my husband and children ahead a day before. I told them to dig 10 or 12 holes so we could plant trees…..see, we had just planted trees HERE so AJ brain said we could plant trees THERE. I figured if we were stuck in Young for our neighbors dinner then perhaps we could get something accomplished as well. ( I was wrong….ground was frozen…who knew?) Now, as you all know, I do not cook….but as I am Sicilian, I did what any and every Sicilian would do if you invite us to dinner, I called and asked if I could bring anything. She said, “yes, thank you….I need you to bring my sister”. I shit you not. I was hoping I’d heard her wrong but as she rattled off directions to her sisters house and then conveniently “lost” the connection, I felt I had no choice. Approximately 30 minutes later of aimlessly driving around Gilbert Arizona paired with a thousand f bombs, I turn a corner and I see the strangest thing. There is a woman standing out on the sidewalk, she is 90 years old if she is a day….she is wearing a leopard skin fur coat, leopard skin pants, leopard skin high heeled boots holding a rolling suitcase in you guessed it, leopard skin material. Her hair is very thin but dyed bright orange and she is wearing blood red lipstick. I pull over and ask if she is in fact, Elaine’s sister…..she says “yes, Elaine is my idiot sister….ugh….I HATE YOUNG”. I load her 400lb overnight bag into my truck and start my THREE HOUR DRIVE UP NORTH with leopard woman. She does not want to sit in the front seat which is fine with me….Welcome to Driving Ms Daisy. Now I hate to stereotype or generalize but folks, I gotta tell ya…..I was a little worried this woman was going to croak in my car. Regardless of her “Lets Join the Circus” exterior, she was as tiny and fragile as a baby bird. Now it was probably 60 degrees in Gilbert when we left, so I had my windows cracked in the Expedition, but as we began gaining elevation and the temperature declining, I naturally rolled them up. Within a few minutes I noticed a smell sort of emanating from the back seat…..what the hell?.....it was a make your eyes water smell…..are you familiar with dog gas?.....there are few things quite as toxic as “dog gas”…..well, folks, apparently whatever happens in a dog’s digestive system is EXACTLY what happened in this 90 year old woman’s system because WHILE SHE WAS SLEEPING she is farting……repeatedly…..in my truck. Did I already mention it’s a THREE HOUR DRIVE?.....I pull over in Payson to get a Diet Coke and when I turned the truck off, she didn’t move. I’m looking at her to see if she is breathing…..not really noticing if that big leopard skin coat is moving up and down or not. Oh, please don’t let this woman be dead…..this COULD account for the smell though…..I gently tap her and say “Rita?”….she rolls her head over and looks at me and yells “who’re you?”…..I almost screamed. Rita fell asleep against my door panel so not only is my door panel smeared with blood red lipstick but it is smeared across her face. Welcome to Childhood Clown Nightmare # 4, 763. I compose myself and ask her if she’d like anything from McDonalds….she asks for a coffee, 3 cream, 4 sugar (“and NOT that fake sugar crap, REAL sugar..and it HAS to be FOUR not THREE, I’ll know if its 3”) I linger in McDonalds, praying for gang members to car jack my Expedition, but sadly, the gods of car jacking do not want Rita and her toxic dog gas either. When I am convinced there is to be no car jacking, I dejectedly return to my vehicle and attempt to hand Rita her coffee without looking directly AT her lest risking nightmares until the next millennium. She says “you shouldn’t just leave your car running like that when you go into McDonalds….its dangerous, you know, gangbangers will steal it” (Quite frankly, I’m a bit disappointed in the City of Payson’s lack of gangbangers….and what IN THEE HELL does Rita know about Gangbangers?......last I checked Dillinger kicked the bucket a LONG time ago)…..”but thanks for the coffee….it’s nice and warm…..and I need that since you’ve been driving with the windows down” (I visualize tossing Rita over a cliff and regret not spending the extra 8 grand on Ford’s Eject Passenger Button) “but I really shouldn’t drink coffee” she says “it tends to give me gas” I shit you not…….. Happy Thanksgiving folks, I’ll be in Tempe Arizona sans Rita if you need me.
Posted on: Wed, 27 Nov 2013 17:45:55 +0000
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