Whatever Happened to Ladies and Gentlemen?

Whenever I read a book or watch a movie set any time before 1970, I’m always taken aback by the propriety of the “days of yore”. For hundreds of years, people spent so much of their time and energy being “proper", from ladies wearing dresses 24 hours a day to gentlemen rising to their feet whenever a woman leaves or enters a room. It all seems so foreign to me, because in a matter of 40 years we have pretty much become a nation of slobs. While at times I think all the rules and regulations of being a “lady” must have been a colossal pain, I can’t help but long to live in a society where people show their respect for themselves and others by meticulously doing all the right things. While it’s great that I’m socially allowed to wear pants (even pajama pants) to the store, I still have to be subjected to a grown man wearing Budwiser flip flops and a hoodie with machine guns printed all over it to CHURCH (yes, this person does exist). How did we go from women vacuuming their own houses in six inch heals to teenage girls wearing fuzzy slippers to middle school? I took enough sociology classes in college to answer my own question. I mean, yay for women’s lib and everything, but my lady parts hurt just a little bit whenever I see a girl walking around with her thong underwear purposely showing.

Rainbows

I saw a full-arc rainbow stretching across the mountains on the way home from work today. It brought back memories of one very special rainbow. On the night before I married my wonderful husband, as I drove into town for our rehearsal dinner, I saw another full-arc rainbow stretching across the mountains. During the dinner, my big brother commented on the rainbow. He too had noticed it, but he mentioned that it seemed to stretch from my childhood home to my husband's childhood home, which are about two miles apart. To him, it represented the miraculous connection we found in each other and would share for the eternities. Now rainbows are no longer just a spectacle but also a symbol for the colorful and endless bond between my husband and me.

Peach Woes

Last week, a massive earwig, with antenna and everything, climbed out of a peach that I was washing for lunch. Needless to say, I was itchy for the rest of the day.

I had bought said peach at a local food stand in attempt to be more "local" and "organic" and whatnot. Man, did that backfire. Normally, encounters with foreign objects in my food cause me to place a boycott, but I seriously LOVE peaches and with several weeks of peach season remaining, I just couldn't give them up.

So, I went to my regular ol' grocery store, where I was hoping to procure some peaches hopped up with pesticides. No more earwigs for me! After a couple days of ripening, my grocery store peaches were perfect. Juicy, sweet, slighty tart, and no earwigs.

So, I went back for more. This next batch, though, tasted like nail polish. That's right, if nail polish were a flavor of smoothie, these peaches would be the main ingredient. To make sure I wasn't crazy, I consulted Google. Turns out, others have also noticed the odd flavor too. The most reasonable answer Google provided is that the chemical flavor comes from pesticides sprayed on the peaches while they're in the orchard. Foiled again!

This appears to be a lose-lose situation. If you want to be "organic," hopefully you don't mind bugs. If you don't want to be "organic", hopefully you don't mind nail polish. If you mind both bugs and nail polish and you have a constant craving for peaches, you lose.

West: The Beginning

It was a grayish May day when Destiny and I met at a Chevron station to begin our summerlong adventure. I'm not being figurative here, Destiny is the name of the friend who invited me to work and live with her in West Yellowstone. Despite all of the disclaimers given to me by Dest about the often miserable conditions of West and against my better judgment, I packed-up my things in Gurdie, my '94 beat-up Buick, and took off—little did I know that I would never return home the same.

The first three and a half hours spent on the plush velour seats of gurdie weren’t bad. I had Fleetwood Mac and James Taylor to keep me company. The bleak clouds that were abundant on the drive foreshadowed the snow that would trouble the final half hour of our trek. Because of the conditions, we proceeded through the canyon which opens into West at no faster than 20 mph. Although it was a miserable shade of grey, the sky began to grow. It is that giant, endless sky that is my favorite thing about the drive to West.

I knew we were there when the highway slowly became lined with hotel billboards. One turn off the highway and we were at our new place, the place we would eventually name “the hell-hole”. The snow had ceased, but the pavement was still wet and the gravel parking lot of the apartment complex was full of deep potholes that, in these conditions, became deep puddles. I’ll never forget the look on Destiny’s face as we got out of our separate cars in front of the apartment building. It said: “don’t kill me for letting you live in a place like this.” Frankly, because of all of her disclaimers I was expecting much worse; this place seemed a good enough. I was wrong. This place was the cherry on top of a overwhelmingly hellish summer.

No Thanks, I'll Brown Bag

Remember the school lunch entree pork choppy? When I was younger, I thought they named it that because they were talking to kids and the 'y' made it sound cuter. Kids will eat anything if it sounds cute. It's like: "Oh cute...it's a pork choppy...nothing suspicious about that...bring it on." Turns out, the lunch entree naming people weren't trying to use audience appropriate language. Truth is, they were legally restricted from calling it a pork 'chop' because it wasn't in fact a chop at all, but rather a mix of sundry pork meats pressed into the shape of a chop. Another reason PB&J is a gift.

West: Effective People Swimming in Ranch and OJ

This is the second installment of (hopefully) many about my adventures living and working in West Yellowstone, Montana.

I groggily reached for the ringing phone; it was my co-waitress Tara, frantic. I glanced at the clock incredulously. It was 7:30 a.m., and I was supposed to be there a half-hour ago. In a mad dash, I added some holey jeans and chuck taylors to my tie-dye pajama shirt to create an ensemble that would soon make friends with all manner of food items.

When I arrived at the restuarant, there was a customer to waitress ratio of 20 to 1. I apologized to Tara and immediately started filling coffee cups and busing tables. But by 8:00 a.m., I had only had a taste of the complete bedlam that would ensue.

After a steady (and by steady, I mean pull-your-hair-out crazy) morning, Stephen R. Covey, you know the expert on highly effective people, proved he wasn't all that effective while he and his family of 30 (mostly young children) terrorized the restaurant for lunch. They ordered 15 shakes; perhaps that's not a huge deal for a place like Wendy's, but when you hand-scoop every shake and make them on a machine that makes a mere three at a time, you're in trouble. The children ran across the place screaming and littering the floor with crumbs and shreds of napkins. It wasn't all bad, though. Mr. Covey gave us a $100 tip and complimented me on my enduring patience by saying I'd be a great mother someday. So, I was somewhat pacified as I cleaned up the hot mess they left in my restaurant.

Then came the ranch. In a moment of sheer clumsiness, I poured an entire five-gallon vat of the slimy substance all the way down my front and onto the kitchen floor, ending a 20-year friendship between me and mayonnaise-based dressing. There's nothing like slopping ranch dressing up off a dingy restaurant floor to make you feel like a second-rate citizen. Smelling like dill weed and garlic for the rest of the day also doesn't help. I figured this had to be the pinnacle of my horrible day. I misunderstood Murphy's Law.

Next came the bus-full of teenage delinquents, out of detention for a day of recreation and buffalo burgers. I don't care what anyone says; picky teenagers are a delight to serve, really. And it's even better when their advisers just plumb forget to tip you. delightful.

I thought I was finally safe from the curse of the restaurant gods while doing my post-shift chores, but I had nonesuch luck. Another reusable 5-gallon ice cream bucket with a loose fitting lid had it in for me. This time, it was filled with orange juice. With all the gracefulness I could muster, I dumped the OJ all over my shoes and onto the same floor previously flooded with ranch. Me plus the restaurant had been a losing combo all day, so I begged the cook to clean up the sticky mess, so I could get the heck out of there. Out of pity, or just because he was a nice guy, he did it, and I was free.

I wish I could say this was the worst day I ever had at Old Town Cafe, but unfortunately, that would be untrue. Stay tuned for an episode titled "Black Wednesday."

9.11.01

I stumbled into my first period English class with wet hair. It was picture day, and like a typical 11th grade girl, I was ticked that I had overslept and hadn't had enough time to primp. I took my seat, and the teacher was nowhere to be found. Nothing too out of the ordinary; he was a pretty crappy teacher. Then, I noticed a radio news program playing quietly from the back of the room. The reporters seemed frantic. They were describing a devastating act of "terrorism" on American soil. The bell had rung minutes ago, and my teachers still hadn't begun class, so I figured that the radio program he was playing must have been part of the lesson. I listened-in more intently. They kept mentioning this word, "terrorism." At 16, I knew little of terrorism. Pearl Harbor was the only real attack I could think of, so I concluded that my teacher had found some archival news program from that attack and was playing it to prep us for a unit on World War II or something. But the program kept playing, and the teacher kept ignoring us. Finally, I leaned over to another student and asked what was going on. He informed me that he saw it on TV before he left for school. Another student said he had heard about it on the radio on his way to school. I felt so out of the loop. My morning had been so hectic, I hadn't heard a word. Until now. Planes. Crashing into the World Trade Center. What's the World Trade Center? Oh, those two identical sky-scrapers in New York City. The Twin Towers. Yeah, I've heard of those. It was incredibly difficult to wrap my teenage mind around the event. Until my teacher found a TV, so I could see for myself. The TV was rolled into our classroom just in time to see the second plane hit the second tower. And finally, it was real. Suddenly, picture day was the last thing on my mind.

Rumors flew around the high school as I went from class to class. Rumors about who was responsible and why they wanted to harm us. Rumors about the Winter Olympics, which were to be held in my city in less than six months, being their next target. Rumors of the budding war. In every class, the teacher either played the radio or showed TV footage. It was a day free from lessons and books, but we were all more captivated than ever. We learned more on that day than any other single day of school.

I was so young, but I was old enough to understand. I was old enough for the attacks to have an impact on my life. For the weeks and months that ensued, I witnessed my country come together as one to mourn and to celebrate our freedom. For the first time, I truly understood what it meant to be a patriot.