Pet Peeve Turned Passion

I have a pet peeve.

It really makes my blood boil when I see a parent wearing sunglasses and their child wears none. It makes me want to turn these people into Social Services, but most Social Services employees are inept.

A lot of these parents sport very expensive-looking sunglasses, so my conjecture is that they either (1) cannot afford sunglasses for their child because they’ve spent so much on their own cool shades, or (2) they are so wealthy that they can afford eye-disease treatment or cataract surgery for their child, once afflicted.

So rather than losing my composure and explaining how selfish and neglectful these parents are, I turned my pet peeve into a passion. I started buying inexpensive child sunglasses, five in a pack, and handing them out or placing them on children—with their parent’s permission, of course. Every time, parents have gladly accepted.

When my hiking buddy, who jumped on the bandwagon with me, found two for $2 shades at Target, he bought a bunch of them, gave them to me, and I have given them away. Recently my daughter and I discovered Dollar Tree, which sells myriad styles—all for a buck, so we stocked up! I remove the tags, stick ’em in a Ziploc, pop ’em in a tote with the rest of my stuff, and off I go—saving children’s eyes!

In mid-June, my gal pal and I dashed off to a community event that turned out to be rather unfortunate in its ambience. Equally unfortunate was the number of moms and dads protecting their own eyes while their little ones suffered and squinted. Heartbreaking. Had I stopped for every visually unprotected child, I would have been at least 35 short. The event mimicked a low-class carnival, jam-packed, so I didn’t make any offers…until we were leaving.

Ahead of us were two young guys and a young gal pushing a stroller, her toddler son unhappily squinting in the glaring sun. “Hi,” I greeted, “I have a pair of sunglasses for your son if you need them!”

“Sure,” she said, and I pulled out the Ziploc. The three young adults eyed the assortment and chose the pair I had the feeling they’d select. I handed them to the mom, who placed them on her son. Like turning on a light switch, this little boy’s face changed from a pained frown to a glowing smile! It was brilliant and truly the highlight of my day—and possibly the little boy’s.

copyright © 2008 by Auntie Eartha. All rights reserved.

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Lesbians, Communication, and the Cute Girl on the Golf Course

(Puzzle piece number 12 of 38.)
I am not a lesbian. Yet.

But don’t you wonder how men and women withstand long-term relationships? The genders operate as differently as automatic and manual transmissions, just grinding away. Communication errors and differing ranges of bandwidth may be partially to blame.

One’s ear may contain a banana and not hear what someone’s voice is saying. The message becomes convoluted, a fruit salad.

Or the speaker may lack clear delivery skills, spewing a mouthful of BFM, bovine fecal matter, the message lost in stench.

Or the listener’s mind could be filled with so much psychobabble that nothing can be accurately heard, like an iPod-wearing, singing-and-dancing teenager just told to vacuum the carpet. (Hmm, that gives me an idea.)

Or maybe a person just doesn’t want to hear. Let’s read this couple’s conversation.

She: “Loverly like a bunch of coconuts it is today, my dear. Let’s get out and play some tennis.”

He: “Yeah! But it’s a better day for golf!”

She: “Uh-huh. Well, afterward maybe we could grab some Thai food to spice things up a bit.”

He: “You bet! But I’d like to bite into a big burger. I’m getting hungry already.”

She: “How about if we call Brent and Kathy and see if they’d like to get together for happy hour.”

He: “Maybe. Though watching the game then jumping in bed sounds better. I’ll go get my clubs!”

According to the Oxford Dictionary on my iBook, the second definition of communication reads “the successful conveying or sharing of ideas and feelings.” Note the word successful.

Verbal communication (vs. listening) has been estimated to be about 7 percent words spoken and 38 percent delivery and tone of voice. The remaining 55 percent is expressed via body language—facial expression, foot tapping, club in hand.

In the fact sheet “Stress and Communication,” the authors state that “the core of effective communication is listening.”* Listening.

Please permit me a small generalization. If a study were conducted on men listening to their wives, and if the wives were to talk about their relationship rather than sports, food, or sex, actual listening may be from 2 to 5 percent. Ninety-five to 98 percent of the husbands’ thoughts may be about what time a ball game will be on TV, planning his next meal, or thinking about that cute girl on the golf course.

Do women hear any better if a guy is talking about the ’48 Chevy he’s restoring, the score of the last ball game, or the cute girl on the golf course? I suspect her ears would prick up a bit on the latter.

Especially if the listener is a lesbian. But she’d wonder about the girl’s swing.

copyright © 2008 by Auntie Eartha. All rights reserved.

* Suzanna Smith and Joe Pergola, “Stress and Communication,” University of Florida Cooperative Extension Service (November 1991), quoted in National Ag Safety Database (April 2002), www.cdc.gov/nasd/docs/d000001-d000100/d000012/d000012.html.

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Revenge

Revenge may be the dish best served cold, but I served mine while it was still warm.

From 2:30 till about 6:30 almost every day for weeks, someone’s dog barked like my mind thinks—incessantly. But the dog bothered me more.

I resorted to wearing my shooting muffs while I worked in an attempt to concentrate. Considering one’s home should be their sanctuary, my coping device seemed contradictory—though I had contemplated shooting something.

By week five, I wore permanent circles around my ears from the muffs, and my tolerance had worn as thin as the seat on my favorite jeans. So I ventured down the street and began spying behind people’s houses.

There it was, the culprit: a Lab mix wagging its black, long-haired tail as it pranced back and forth in its backyard that abuts my kinder neighbors’ backyard. The dog probably hoped its owner would hear what the rest of the neighborhood had gone insane from and let the neglected beast inside.

But derelict petkeepers aren’t concerned about what their dogs need, nor what their neighbors have to suffer. The unconscious flybrain probably wouldn’t even notice if every house on the block displayed a For Sale sign, with arrows pointing toward the perpetrator’s house.

I know everyone on my street, but not everyone on the adjacent street where Inconsiderado lived. Had I known this person, and being the diplomatic, sensitive person I am, I would have promptly suggested his or her moving to North Korea.

In my investigative, CIA style, I learned that the inattentive, irresponsible black hole was a female! I jotted down her name and phone number and decided to ring her in a courageous moment and have a little chat.

But I don’t have many courageous moments anymore and never got the nerve. Instead, I donned the shooting muffs again and tried to work. After wearing the muffs so long I could hear my thoughts twice, I decided to walk around the block with our fairly well-behaved, nonbarking Lab, Shiloh.

I first tossed the ball a few times to encourage him to deposit treasures on my own lawn, rather than another’s. Once accomplished, I leashed him and embarked on our journey. We rounded the corner at block’s end, walked the short end of the block, then turned right again, proceeding up Numbskull-Neighbor Street.

Only two houses into this block and good ol’ Shiloh yanked me to the side to produce yet more jewels for my collection. I stared up at the sky, hummed a little all-I-ever-do-is-pick-up-doo, I-need-to-feed-him-less ditty, and awaited my opportunity to bag the morsels.

Great, I thought, that’ll cut my walk short, because I will not hike with this odiferous, porous bag at my side. And then I started to smile. Today was garbage day for some. I continued forward about eight houses, and Bingo! Such excitement! Her garbage container awaited my warm, thoughtful gift. I surveyed my surroundings, saw no one watching, and with the widest, most devilish of grins, I slipped my Warm Dish of Revenge into No One Is Really Home’s empty bin.

Revenge may be the dish best served cold, but fresher and warmer with a little side odor is more gratifying. What a stinker!

copyright © 2008 by Auntie Eartha. All rights reserved.

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Dear Pimples…Love, Rich

Remember back in grade school when your teacher taught you how to make a capital D by extending Mr. Curve on the right all the way down to the bottom of Mr. Stem? Me either. But it’s a good policy.

My face started breaking out when I was in college. It probably didn’t happen in high school, because I didn’t care about much except my boyfriend and dog back then.

But I had to pay for college, so I wanted to participate, be involved in student organizations, get good grades. So I worried, even graduating with an advanced degree in worry, and my face indicated it. I was uncomfortable about my condition, embarrassed. I became ultrasensitive about how others viewed me and from which angle.

My friend Rich, who had already graduated, would go to my house while I was in class and leave fun, sentimental, thoughtfully written cards. His words had depth toward which I still aspire, though we journalists can be perpetually matter-of-fact. He had heart, you could tell, and didn’t seem to be bothered by my facial “worry expressions.”

One day after school in the quiet of my home, I tenderly and eagerly opened an envelope from Rich and read: “Dear Pimples…”

Ahhhhh! That undiplomatic coot, I thought, laughing as if I’d seriously maim him next time I saw him. I was appalled!

Then, in my aftershock, I reread his caustic greeting and realized, in his special method of scribing, he had actually written “Dear Dimples,” his nickname for me.

copyright © 2008 by Auntie Eartha. All rights reserved.

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Here’s Lookin’ at You, Kid

My dad has one eye—well, actually two, but one is plastic.

At age seven, he was playing Cowboys and Indians with his brother and the neighbor boys. My dad liked to horse around, so he was a cowboy. Unfortunately, an “Indian” shot an arrow into his eye.

Since then, he has worn a prosthetic eye. Every couple of years he has a new one made, and his old eyes are placed in his jewelry box. If a thief were to search Dad’s room for valuables and discover Dad’s eyes, the burglar may leave a deposit.

Dad has a good sense of humor about the situation. Being in the lending business, he’d say to an unsuspecting client, “If you can tell me which eye is artificial, I’ll give you the loan.” Credibility.

As a child, I grew up seeing Dad’s eye sitting in a glass of water by the bathroom sink at night. For me, it was normal. When I’d have a friend sleep over though, reactions would range from a screech to, “I won’t brush my teeth with that thing watching me.”

To my friends, seeing an eye in a glass was like keeping fat from your liposuction in a Ziploc bag as a conversation piece or saving your appendix in a jar to remind you how useless some things can be. You kind of wonder.

When I was about four, Mom, Nana, and I went on an Amtrak journey from Wisconsin to Indianapolis to visit Nana’s oldest daughter and her four kids. The trip involved sleeping overnight on the train, and I had been raised to understand that some people took out their eye before going to sleep.

At bedtime as we were walking past a group of passengers to go to our sleeping compartment, I innocently asked Nana, “Are you going to take out your eye?” The passengers abruptly ended their conversations and tried not to gawk.

As a rebellious teenager, I always had the urge to freeze one of Dad’s eyes in an ice cube and drop it into a friend’s drink. I figured it would open some eyes. “Here’s lookin’ at you, kid.”

copyright © 2008 by Auntie Eartha. All rights reserved.

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Pancakes

My friend, who for years was a professional Santa Claus, was walking down a store aisle one day when a little boy walked over to him and patted his tummy. “Baby?” the little one asked.

“No, son,” my friend replied, smiling, “pancakes.”

copyright © 2008 by Auntie Eartha. All rights reserved.

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Wigs Whippin’ in the Wind

Mom had cancer, age 30. As a result of her treatment, she suffered hair loss. While some may sadly and sympathetically offer a syrupy, “What a shame,” Mom saw it as an opportunity to become addicted. She slipped into a parade procession with two friends, Vickie and Rebecca, and became obsessed with expressing herself. It was hairy.

Vickie was a beautician, as they were called, and Rebecca had lovely, bleached, perfectly coiffed locks. The setting was a small Midwestern town in the late sixties: psychedelic mod flowers, miniskirts, wide belts, Simon and Garfunkel, Vietnam, Apollo 13, Mrs. Robinson, valium, and beehives.

Mom’s friends loved to flirt with new hairstyles, and wigs provided them with hours of entertainment. They could be styled and restyled, put on and flung across the room, all without pain.

With her thinning hair, Mom had reason to comb the beach in search of a cover-up, so she purchased a cute human-hair wig. Each time Vickie or Rebecca would buy a new wig, so would Mom. Before long she had amassed a closet full of hairdos—human strands and synthetic. On the top shelf, all neatly posed as if on a catwalk ready for show were Styrofoam heads topped with every style of the sixties. Coupled with my dad’s pistol, it was quite the scare.

Each wig had a personality and, therefore, a name: Martha Washington, Dutch Boy, Dutch Girl, Twiggy, Morticia, Blondie, Elvis. When Mom would rise in the morning to prepare for work, she’d decide who she wanted to be and plop on the appropriate character.

One Saturday on a grocery shopping escapade at the Red Owl, the bag boy and I walked outside while Mom paid the bill. I opened the back door of our station wagon, and he started placing our groceries in the backseat.

Just as Mom stepped out of the store, a big gust of wind blew under Mom’s wig and lifted it off her head, exposing her bobby-pinned thin hair. It flew across the parking lot, under cars, faster and farther away from her. Every time she’d catch up to her wig, the wind would revive and she’d have to start running after it again.

The boy tried his hardest to muffle his laughter, while I watched in amazement as my mom chased her ’do. Exasperated, she finally reached her wig.

Embarrassed and frustrated, instead of laying claim to the dirty hairball and picking it up, she kicked it another ten feet, stomped over to it in a huff, picked up the hair, and walked to the car.

copyright © 2008 by Auntie Eartha. All rights reserved.

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Swallow This

Note: You may want to read “Tattoo and Piercing” (Dec. 8, 2007) before reading this.

I don’t believe a woman’s intuition is any better than a man’s, but women may listen to and follow through on intuition more than men. In fact, I have male friends whose intuition is better than most, so when they offer insight, I listen. On this day, I wish one of my friends had stopped by and shared some insight, ’cause I certainly didn’t listen to my own.

I’d been doing my annual hand-sewing to repair a sweater and laid the thread-laced needle on the living room window ledge. Walking past the window, admiring the greening spring grass, I glanced down and thought, I should put that needle away in case the kitties find it intriguing.

Of course, a needle doesn’t offer the same fascination as twitching yarn, a bouncing ball, or Shiloh the dog’s tail, so why worry? I proceeded to the dining room table and began to write.

Half an hour later, I looked up from my computer and saw the last of my thread being swallowed by the younger, extremely skittish of our two felines—the one I called Piercing because I needed him as much. Oh my gosh, I thought. How dumb can an animal be? Me being the animal.

I pushed myself away from the table, stomach in my neck, and ran toward the freakish cat to pull the needle from his tongue.

Catching this cat is like catching a hummingbird on caffeine. Since Shiloh, our Lab, first found him in our neighbor’s woodpile, he has never been tame, except to Shiloh and Tattoo. You can’t reach down and pet him, much less hold him and duct tape him to the wall. He has the personality of traumatized Siberian tiger and the weight to sound like one when he walks.

When we decided to keep him, he was a fur-covered twig, emaciated and starving. Feeling sympathetic and feeding him was my first mistake. Accepting him after another neighbor discovered him in her garage was my second. Paying to get him neutered and vaccinated was my third. The fourth is right around the bend.

Down the stairs he ran, faster than my ex when I said a bill was due, and into his unreachable cubby. He’s going in there to die, I surmised. I felt awful. Honest.

An hour later he emerged from his cubby and tried to eat. Sadly, he tried to eject the needle with a gag. Thanks to our hardwood floor and his inability to dig in and launch, I caught him. Six calls to veterinarians and one return call later, my daughter and I drove to a vet, who, since it was day’s end, sent us to emergency, which he said would be cheaper. Ha! My friend who just sold her animal hospital informed me otherwise.

Three and a half hours and $220 later (mistake number four), the kitten was still alive and had a hole in his tongue where the vet had to pull the needle and thread out—after cutting the knot off—and not through the same passage in which it went. Piercing now wears a tongue ring.

copyright © 2008 by Auntie Eartha. All rights reserved.

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Glissando

(Puzzle piece number 11 of 38.)
What good are stairs if you can’t slide down ’em in some way? Of course, it’s better to plan the journey first.

I wish I were a kid for a day, so I could slide down my friend Patti’s carpeted stairs. Patti had a great laugh—sort of a fast rat-a-tat-tat-tat in the back of her throat that would fill a staircase with joy, and her little nose would crinkle like a tightened shar-pei’s neck.

Patti was the youngest in her family and lived in a warm, family-oriented home. Spoiled rotten, Patti’s parents let her get away with almost anything—and when I went to her house, so did I!

From the upper bedroom level, their house had eight steps down to the main level, then another eight steps down to the family room. Patti and I would bump and giggle, jolt and jiggle down those stairs for hours. Ready, set, bump-bump-bump-bump-bump-bump-bump-splat! Then we’d wiggle and waggle on our rears round the bend for the next set. “Wheeee!” Bump-bump-bump-bump-bump-bump-bump-splat! What a riot!

My stomach would ache from the jarring and laughter, and I wore out the seats of many pairs of pants. We probably wore down their carpet too.

That childhood experience must have lit a fire in my belly, because growing older didn’t hamper my enthusiasm for staircases in the least. When I got to high school and saw six long lengths of stairs with smooth wooden handrails and waist-high walls from which they hung, my first thought was, Wow! I could slide down those babies!

When high school protocol became familiar, some free-spirited guys and I would carefully scope for power figures, and if the coast was clear, we’d glide! Books in one arm, half-length wall on the other. We’d sail from a main floor down to the landing, round the corner and soar down to the next floor. We always felt giddy and lucky every time we escaped capture.

But one day the Luck Fairy was visiting a different school, and four boys and I were caught. I was petrified, thinking the worst: He’ll call my parents. He’ll expel me. He’ll publicly humiliate me, make me repent, dance, and sing in front of the entire student body. Contradicting prior events in my life, the principal made the boys walk up and down a length of stairs ten times: only the boys.

I never slid down the rail again, which took self-control because it was so risky, exciting, fun. It would be so cool to be in high school again…for just a day.

Back to the Patti era and right across the street. The stairs in our ranch-style house could have been seen as entertainment had they been padded and carpeted. But leading to our cold, dark, dank, concrete-floor basement were 13 consecutive steps—hard, rigid, wood steps.

Dad would walk down those steps each evening after work and on the weekends to put on his jeans and dirty-work shirt. He and I would then drive to our ranch to feed the livestock, while Mom stayed home to prepare dinner and think of dirty tricks to play on Dad.

One weekend evening Dad and I were driving home from the ranch after an exhausting day’s work. We were starving and looking forward to our showers. We parked in the driveway, tiredly extracted ourselves from the car, and headed toward the house.

I walked toward the upstairs bathroom as my dad headed downstairs. Without warning, I heard a bump-bump-bump-bump-bump-bump-bump-splat as my dad bellowed, “Joan-ieeeeeeee!” Mom had waxed the basement stairs.

What good are stairs if you can’t slide down ’em in some way? Of course, it’s better to plan the journey first. I wonder if his journey was planned. Cleanliness may be next to godliness, but is cleverness next to vengeance?

copyright © 2008 by Auntie Eartha. All rights reserved.

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Seamingly Creative

(Puzzle piece number 10 of 38.)
In “Unearthed,” my first post, I mentioned that my parents were not cut from matrimonial cloth. Rather, they wove an erratic web of discontent. Like pants that were too tight: they kept crawling up each other’s butts.

Their ubiquitous disharmony far surpassed light moments, and their periods of silence superseded even mundane conversation. So one way Mom communicated with Dad was through subterfuge—with a creative streak.

About a year after Mom discovered her sewing machine (see “Secrets”), Dad accepted a transfer from Wisconsin to Minnesota. Mom and I were not thrilled in the least about leaving Nana, her mom, and the comfort of having her nearby. I had just started kindergarten and depended on Nana to walk me across the street to her home on school days. Nevertheless, before winter break, Dad cemented our plans to move from cold to colder.

The first winter in western Minnesota was excruciating. It snowed almost all the time and the frigid winds blew drifts so high, we were able to climb onto our roof. It was that winter when I discovered there was no Santa Claus—even I couldn’t get my little buns down our chimney.

Months after settling into his new position as branch manager, Dad decided to buy a ranch and raise beef cattle—his lifelong dream, Mom’s and my nightmare.

We didn’t live on our ranch; in fact, I wonder if we lived at all. We worked. We all had full-time jobs in addition to being full-time ranchers. Dad ran the loan company, Mom managed an appliance business, and I functioned as student, homemaker, maid, and referee between parents.

We lived in town close to my elementary school and commuted ranchward to care for our cattle, horses, and cats. Workaholism is one of our family addictions (laziness is a sin).

On weekends, Dad practically lived on the ranch. He’d erect fences, build structures, plant oats, wheat, and alfalfa, care for the animals, and expel flatus. Mom would keep her distance as much as possible, thinking of ways to torment my father.

When a person feels the call of nature while in a field or in the woods, one doesn’t run to find a biffy, as Norwegians called the loo. If the person is male, relief is all the easier. So Dad unzipped his overalls, but found no opening in his boxers. Feeling a flood of desperation, he quickly reached to the back of his shorts, figuring he’d put his boxers on backward, only to discover another sewn seam.

Under his breath, he muttered, “That wife.”

Yes, Mom and her sewing machine. What a stitch.

copyright © 2008 by Auntie Eartha. All rights reserved.

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Seniors' Day at the Market

In one sense I’ve been lucky. For years cooking wasn’t my thing. Fortunately I’ve dated men for whom it was. I had an attraction to guys who would feed me. There were a few things I made well: spaghetti, stir fry, cheesecake, and ambiance were among them.

As I was leaving our home during our divorce, I asked my ex, “Will you show me how to grocery shop?” So he did.

At first I was nervous, stepping gingerly amidst all that food, wondering what I would do with my purchases when I brought them home. But a short time later, say, a year, I had the chore pretty well licked and was ready to go it alone.

Like an archaeological dig, I ventured into new territory, unearthing exotic finds with verve. At home I perused Bon Appétit for ideas on preparation and presentation. The next thing you know, I was a budding Martha Stewart, making the house look like Home Extraordinaire, throwing dinner parties with all the right wines, and truly enjoying this newfound talent, if memory serves.

Then one day my grocery shopping escapades stepped up a notch: they became social events! I’d draw lipstick on my best smile, primp my attitude, slide into my red shoes, and cruise to the store with anticipation.

Calling most employees at this huge supermarket by name, my greetings are personal, “Hey, Bob! How’s that colostomy bag holding up?” “Wow, Sherry! That liposuction is really working!” “Jim! Don’t hold those melons too long.”

Some go out of their way to share a grope. Others have opened a checkout lane just to catch up and chortle. The fun flows into other lanes, and people start smiling all over the place like a flood. The only thing missing at this affair is wine!

Being a freelancer, I shop when I have time, need, and money, not on a particular day. Mornings are usually best because there are fewer shoppers (but fewer checkers). The clientele varies, depending on the time of day and the day itself.

One morning I walked into the store around nine and saw a stubby bus parked by the entryway. Being a regular Sherlock Holmes, I deduced that it was Seniors' Day at the Market. Sure enough, like freshly fallen snow, cotton-tops had infiltrated every aisle. They were everywhere, cautiously pushing carts as if blindly furrowing their way, reaching out every so often to drop something into their baskets.

In my own senior moment, I stood lost, reading the directory for guidance, when I caught something moving in my periphery. Gradually moving toward me, head turning left and right, was a petite, doddering old woman, eyes level with her hands firmly gripping the cart’s handle.

She sees me, I thought. Yes. How can you miss a tall girl like me…or my nose?

Like Jaws swimming nearer her catch, crash! she struck me with her cart. I tried to catch my balance with a step or two sideways, but landed on my rear on the floor. Without a blink or word, she just kept on rolling past me…and I sat bruised in a puddle of giggles, watching her amble around the corner, toilet paper stuck to her shoe.

copyright © 2008 by Auntie Eartha. All rights reserved.

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Babies and Boundaries (Illegal Immigration)

(Puzzle piece number 9 of 38.)
Imagine knowing you are not welcome somewhere, but you decide to go anyway—like crashing a rival frat party. Your determination is so strong to get in that you don’t give a rat’s tail what people think. They may look at you with disdain, distrust, and disgust, as if you’re some kind of alien, but hey, maybe you’re used to that.

Your goal is to get in and see if they’ll notice. If they do, maybe they’ll even like you, yet looking in the mirror makes you wonder.

After you’re there, maybe you can make some exchanges and take advantage of freebies, like food, a T-shirt, some liquor, maybe even a place to stay and have sex at no cost, except maybe a social disease, which you probably already have.

When you get in, maybe you’ll just blend in with zillions of others who somehow made it past the door. And at the relative rate of reproduction, you’d fit right in. Yet the ones who were invited see you for who you are and don’t respect you or the way you handle yourself.

They don’t like your polluting the air with your smoke, from your mouth or your car, and tossing cigarette butts and waste out your window. You just don’t care about the environment, inside or out, and they start to mistrust you.

And since very few like you have been educated to understand there is a limited supply of sustenance, including water and clean air, others dedicate time and energy to have you removed, like refuse.

Unfortunately for everyone, after you sneaked in, you lacked self-control and irresponsibly used zero contraception, so now a baby’s on the way. And soon, maybe another, knowing your history. No one taught you to read or to think.

Who’s going to take care of all these babies? you ask yourself. Are you going to lay the blame on that party you sneaked into? “Yo, looky here. You left the door unlocked and now I got a kid. Here! You take it! We got plenty more of these back home.” Back home.

Do you have the wherewithal and the desire to change?

You can sneak into Free Land, but once you foul yourself and our environment, where then will you go? Oh, right. You’ll be dead soon or we’ll be feeding, clothing, and housing you in one of our prisons.

So don’t worry. Be scared.

copyright © 2008 by Auntie Eartha. All rights reserved.

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