Yes. No. Maybe. Whatever.

26 Tuesday Nov 2013

Tags

Aliens, Doctor Who, Hobbit, humor, National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration, Ood, Ooze, The Doctor

What you are about to read may seem shocking or even frightening, but forewarned is forearmed, as they say, and so I must tell you: the aliens have landed. And these are no ordinary aliens. They are shape shifters, and they creep among us now—today—undetected until they try to communicate.

While a haze of ambiguity surrounds this strange species, they are similar to the Ood, an extraterrestrial race encountered by The Doctor on his travels through time and space.

Images courtesy of bbc.co.uk

The Ood live only to please. This new species yearns to be all things to all people. Their name? The Ooze. In Doctor Who the Ood are kept as servants, performing tasks for future generations of the universe. In real life here on Earth, the Ooze have free reign and have seeped into every facet of life—politics, advertising, the office, chat rooms, websites—everywhere, in fact, that people come together.

I first suspected an invasion by the Ooze when I read this insightful weather prediction released this week by the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration: Because of a lack of influential factors such as El Niño and La Niña, this winter will be warm or it will be cold; there will be rain or there will not be rain; it will snow or it will not snow.

Image courtesy of NOAA

Not long after reading that, my worst fears of wholesale conquest by the Ooze were confirmed when I received this communiqué from their leader:

“Hello I carefully read your profile, but I didn’t see a secret recipe to win your heart, so I will have to think of something on my own.”

Classic Ooze! I was able to resist the simultaneous optimistic/ominous tone of this missive, however, because I don’t have a secret recipe, but if I did I’m pretty sure the ingredients wouldn’t include sap.

Besides, here’s the profile from my language learning site that this Oozian so “carefully” perused: “I want to learn German because I am of German heritage and I would like to travel to Germany.” Yeowza! That really gets the blood boiling doesn’t it?

He continues: “I hardly come online here because of my work. My friends say I am tall, clever, funny and interesting. Write me back and find out yourself.”

Oh, those Ooze—so insecure about their height. You’d think they were from Hobbiton. Anyway, like my kids say, “No thank you” to writing back.

But how exactly do I know this guy is the leader of the Ooze? Check out his profile:

“I am a person who is positive about every aspect of life. There are many things I like to do, to see, and to experience. I like to read, I like to write; I like to think, I like to dream; I like to talk, I like to listen. I like to see the sunrise in the morning, I like to see the moonlight at night; I like to feel the music flowing on my face, I like to smell the wind coming from the ocean. I like to look at the clouds in the sky with a blank mind, I like to do thought experiment when I cannot sleep in the middle of the night. I like flowers in spring, rain in summer, leaves in autumn, and snow in winter. I like to sleep early, I like to get up late; I like to be alone, I like to be surrounded by people.”

…I like to look up. I like to look down.

…I like to walk forward. I like to walk backward.

…I like to like you. I like to like the hundred other girls I sent this to.

So beware! The Ooze are here. The Ooze are there. Unfortunately, the Ooze are everywhere.

Shopping for the Whirrfect Woman

18 Monday Nov 2013

Posted by Kath Carroll in Holidays, Shopping

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Apple Store, China, Cyber Monday, humor, JCPenney, Shopping, Singles Day

In 1968 Harry Nilsson sang, “one is the loneliest number…” Well, now comes confirmation via a story by Shanshan Wang and Eric Pfanner in the New York Times that old Harry had it right. And nowhere is this loneliness more evident than in China. All over that vast nation, male progeny of the “one child rule” are struggling to find a girlfriend. Or maybe they just can’t see the available girls through the smog.

Whatever. These poor guys are so forlorn that November 11 has become known as “Singles Day” for the utter melancholy “symbolized by the four lonely 1s of 11/11” (can you imagine the despair of 1/11/11? thank goodness it only came once), and on that day they turn to a deviant and unnatural act for consolation—shopping.

Now, I have a son and I know all about males and shopping. If you can get them inside the doors of a store, whatever their eyes light upon first is what they will buy. Whether the size is three times too small or three times too big, the shirt or pants fit “good.” I fully blame this phenomenon for the cultural touchstone so often seen on our streets and in our malls: low-slung jeans. These hip orbiters are not a fad, they are the result of severe dressingroomaphobia.

Once while shopping for new school clothes, an Indian woman, a Hispanic woman, I, and our respective sons all ended up in the jeans department of JCPenney. As we women looked around at each other, our common expression of long-suffering exasperation told us that we were kindred spirits and that cultural differences held no sway. We exchanged knowing smiles, understanding that given half a chance mothers like us could unite the world; for there is no more persuasive power on earth than a mother talking to her son in a clothing store.

In fact, the Hispanic woman and her son were locked in just such a negotiation as my daughter and I pretended to seriously compare the 700 styles of Levis while waiting for my son. The teenager, slouching and with his eyes downcast, mumbled some incantation that would render him invisible or at least smite those who witnessed him Out In Public With His Mother, while the woman intoned, “Try them on. Just. Try. Them. On.” And as I knew he would, because I had just been through the same bonding ritual with my dear boy, he shuffled off toward those “rooms of doom.”

Soon, we heard a door open and six pairs of eyes simultaneously turned toward the sound. My son appeared with the new jeans bunched in his hands. “How did they fit?” I asked, although I suspected he had just stood in the room for what he deemed an appropriate amount of time before coming out. “Good,” he mumbled, slouching and with eyes downcast. So we bought them and he wears them and I don’t ask when he hitches them up.

But now it seems Chinese retailers have overcome “male shopping aversion syndrome” by understanding one simple fact: men can easily “seek solace for their single status by buying electronic devices and other gear.” Thus, “Singles Day” has become a mammoth shopping day that makes Cyber Monday look like a child’s lemonade stand. This year Alibaba, the Chinese company that owns Tmall (the T-rex of online retailers) processed more than $5.75 billion payments.

So the truth is out. Who needs a real woman when you can take your new computer, smart phone, smart phone watch, tablet, television, gaming system, meat thermometer, 3D printer, wireless speaker ear warmers, GPS, “Call Me Gloves” (“Hey, Baby, can you come over and shovel my driveway for me?”), distance calculating talking golf caddy…well, you get the picture…back to your man cave for a little quality time?

This is, of course, no secret—just peer into any Apple Store any time any day of any week. It just took the Chinese to truly capitalize on it. But there was one more compelling (disturbing?) statistic from this year’s “Singles Day” extravaganza: also sold were 1.6 million bras and 2 million pairs of panties. Coincidence? I think not. The mind reels at what kind of hybrid electronowoman is being created by those lonelyhearted men.

I’m sure the folks at Apple are taking note. Can iMackenzie be far behind?

Getting There is All the Fun?

06 Wednesday Nov 2013

Posted by Kath Carroll in The Formative Years

≈ 8 Comments

Tags

Abominable Snowman, air travel, airport security, Bigfoot, Homeland Security, humor, SkyMall catalogue, Transportation Security Administration, travel, Yeti

My daughter and I recently returned to the scene of my formative years, Hollywood, Florida, which of course meant: Air Travel. Now, we all know what Air Travel entails these days what with removing shoes, removing belts, removing computers, removing phones, removing liquids, the x-ray body scan, the pat down, liquids retrieval, phone retrieval, computer retrieval , belt retrieval, and shoes retrieval. Years ago when all of this started, you’d think we were preparing for dates with the security agents it took us so long to perform these tasks. We redressed carefully, reorganized our bags with precision, and checked and rechecked the bins.

Now, we’re all like contestants on some kind of TSA “beat the clock” game show: “John S. Pistole—TSA Head—I can completely disassemble and reassemble my packing in three-point-oh-four seconds!” Afterwards, as we sprint for the gate, our clothes are askew and our laces untied, our bags hang open, and if we leave something in the bin, so be it. We can always buy another.

My favorite passengers in the security line were the two 2-year olds behind us. When the snappish security agent told their mother that their teddy-bear harnesses had to go and she removed them from their tiny shoulders, they let out a combined wail that could’ve been heard all the way to the office of Homeland Security. This act of Civil Disobedience got them a straight shot through the electronic scanner to freedom. You go, toddlers! I’ll tell you, my role models are getting younger and younger.

My least favorite? The brittle, blond woman in front of us who was donned from head to toe in black and metal. Metal ? Really??! As the family in front of her frantically unpacked, she clutched her black-and-bling bag, shook her jangling wrists, tapped her studded stilettos, fiddled with her chain-link belt, and emitted exasperated sighs while completely ignoring the empty bins in front of her. When I asked if she had anything to unpack, she fixed me with her withering gaze, rolled her eyes toward the encumbered family and sighed, “Yes, but….”

Of course as you might imagine, when she finally answered the golden invitation she’d been awaiting, her chain-mail ensemble required repeated trips through the x-ray machine and caused much consternation among the agents, holding up the line much longer than the hapless family ever did.

Once on the plane, I immediately reached for the SkyMall catalog. SkyMall is a mastery of marketing savvy. Opening the cover is like coming home. Or like coming home to the home you wish you were coming home to. This home is filled with handcrafted wine from “America’s most trusted wine club” and portable power gadgets that guarantee “you will never be without power again.” Yes!, I said to myself, world dominance is mine! I was feeling pretty good about things.

But then the flight attendant gave the spiel about how the only time we may look forward to clean oxygen during the flight is if the plane goes into a death spiral, and the cabin began filling with stale, diesel-y, germ-laden air. I moved on to the next SkyMall entry: “ThunderShirts.” ThunderShirts are tiny jackets for “calming pets distressed by fear or anxiety.”

The bad air and two inches of personal space were starting to take their effect, but I was still aware enough to wonder: “Is this what life in America has come to? What could frighten our animals so much that they need straightjackets to cope?” Then, just as I was about to pass out, I saw this: “NEW! Abominable Snowman Yeti Statue.” This life size (72”H x 45”W x 38”D; $2,350.00) “ape-like Bigfoot” is designed to be “innovative garden décor,” a “unique holiday decoration” (I can’t believe the Yetiday decorations are already out in stores, it’s not even Nessie Day! And remember: Keep “Yeti” in Yetiday.), or an “office mascot.” I jolted awake because I realized that all over America people have picked up the phone or visited the website to buy this and that pets have every right to be afraid…to be very afraid.

With the promise of these kinds of quality items, how could I not turn the page?Looking for an activity where you and your friends can knock yourselves unconscious without the aid of drinking games? Try “The Human Slingshot” which involves “four people slinging each other back and forth within a human sized stretchable band.” **

**Attending EMTs cost extra

Tired of those thin lips that come with age or from intense grimacing while watching Congress attempt to pass legislation or while trying to log onto HealthCaredotgov? Stop agonizing! You can get fuller, more beautiful lips in seconds with these suction cups specially shaped to “enhance your whole mouth or only the center.” Didn’t they used to lance boils this way?

Ok, so I was having a hard time deciding what to buy when I turned to the back pages and saw this: “Mounted Squirrel Head.” Bingo! This is just the thing I need to hang next to the bird feeder as a warning to others. But then I thought our wily squirrels would probably use their poor, fallen comrade as a spring board to the feeder. After all, there’s no honor among thieves.

Suddenly, the flight attendant was back on the intercom. She told us we could resume use of our electronic devices and that the seat pocket in front of us should be used for “light reading material” only. Again, I was thrown into a quandary. Oh why does Air Travel have to be so hard these days?

On my lap sat the book I’d brought along—All the King’s Men. It is the “Restored Edition” of the 1947 Pulitzer Prize winning novel by Robert Penn Warren. Did this qualify as “light reading material,” I wondered? It’s not War and Peace, but still the issues in it are pretty weighty. If I put it in the pocket, would it bring down the plane? Did I dare risk it?

By this time I was feeling a bit shaky and wishing I had one of those ThunderShirts. I turned the page in SkyMall and there in front of me was the answer to another burning question about Air Travel—what happens to all the clothes left behind in the security line? It is cut apart and sewn together with other lost garments. The result is the “One Of A Kind” shirt. This “piece of art” (take that Picasso!) allows you to “show that you’re a little different than everyone else and want them to take notice.”

Looking closely at the picture, a few things came to mind. First, I would also have given this an “F.” Second, it seems someone did take notice: Is that a black eye?Did he get it fighting to acquire the shirt or because he was wearing the shirt? And third, could they possibly have paid him enough to model it? My head was swimming with these thoughts when the guy in front of me reclined his seat back even further and brain fog came over me again.

I picked up my book, opened the seat pocket, and slipped it in. I really needed some oxygen.

Twisted Confessions of a (Former) Oreo Addict

22 Tuesday Oct 2013

Posted by Kath Carroll in The Formative Years

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

cocaine, college life, Connecticut College, humor, New London Connecticut, Oreos, Oreos as addictive as cocaine, satire

A recent research study conducted on lab rats by students and a professor of psychology at Connecticut College in New London, Connecticut has found that Oreo cookies are just as addictive as cocaine. In the experiments, rats were given Oreos on one side of a maze while on the other side they were fed a control of rice cakes. In a comparative study, rats were given cocaine or morphine on one side of the maze and saline on the other. Researchers discovered that when given a choice, the rats fed Oreos spent as much time on the “drug” side of the maze as those given cocaine or morphine.

The results of this study are no surprise to me. In fact, the only surprising thing is that the purchase of “America’s favorite cookie” hasn’t long ago been relegated to back alleys and furtive handoffs. It is an opinion forged through long, personal suffering.

My tragic story goes back to my college days and, like thousands of others, began innocently enough. The specter of Oreos, I realize now, was always in my consciousness. I grew up, if you remember from my first post, in South Florida, where Oreos pour into the state through the easy access of highways, byways, and waterways like mosquitoes after a rainy spring. The police and Coast Guard do their best to thwart these operations, but it seems there’s no limit to the desperadoes willing to risk it all for the big bucks, flashy cars, gaudy jewelry, ostentatious mansions, and freewheeling lifestyle Oreo trafficking provides.

Despite the pervasive temptation of these sweet treats, I survived my childhood and teenage years unscathed, preferring the comforting sway of iced tea and Chips Ahoy. I see, now, that I had been kidding myself and was already on the slippery slope, awaiting only the freedom of college to be undone. All the backgammon games, racquetball matches, pep rallies, football games, coffeehouses, poetry slams, trips to the mountains, trips to Knoxville, movie nights, and—oh, yes—reading, papers, and exams took their toll. How to cope?

I had heard “help” was available, but I was naïve in how to procure it. And then one night, during a friendly game of backgammon, my roommate pulled out a suspicious package and placed it between us. I was shocked, having always believed her only vice was the Swisher Sweet cigars she smoked while making reeds for her oboe.

I have to admit, however, that the pack’s alluring blue wrapper curiously attracted me. Without ceremony, my roommate ripped it open and pulled out what was to become my obsession and my nemesis. With practiced efficiency she separated the two chocolate cookies with a single twist and licked up the white creamy center. I was at once repelled and fascinated.

“Want one?” she asked, waggling one in front of me.

What I should have done was run from the room. I should have prayed for strength. I should have Just Said No. But I had two backgammon checkers on the bar and my roommate had already removed three from the board, and in a moment of weakness, I said, “Sure.” Actually, I said, “Sure!”

She handed me the cookie and I took a bite. “No! Not like that!” my roommate cried out. Immediately, I again felt the sting of the uncool. My high school career came flooding back to me in a hallucinatory rush. Suddenly, I didn’t want to be that geeky girl with the glasses, permed hair, lucky knee socks, and straight A’s in Modern European History anymore. I wanted to taste all life had to offer. I grabbed the top and bottom of the cookie and twisted.

The smooth, creamy filling was a revelation. I felt energized, invincible. I reached for another one and attacked the game with new verve. A quarter of the bag later, I had won in a series of frenzied, inspired moves. I was hooked.

The years sped by in an Oreo-fueled haze. I fell in with a bad crowd, dragging my sister along for the ride. We spent weekend nights trolling the dimly lit aisles of Food City, pooling our money for a much needed fix. At first one bag was enough to meet everyone’s needs, but soon only an entire bag per person satisfied our cravings.

No all-nighter was complete without the motivation and inspiration those chocolate rounds supplied. We didn’t care if we woke up in a pile of strewn wrappers and crumpled row dividers; we hardly noticed the thick cream that matted our hair; and we felt no shame in picking crumbs out of the carpet for breakfast. We knew we would Ace those exams, and we knew what to thank for it.

You might think someone would have intervened, but I was wily. The Tab kept me thin, I always carefully dusted myself of any lingering crumbs, and I kept my grades up. In fact the saccharine stimulation only made the Old English of Beowulf, the Early Modern English of Shakespeare, and the Modern-But-Still-Incomprehensible English of James Joyce all the easier to understand. Even the hair style managed by the lead singer of Flock of Seagulls made sense.

Finally, though, I hit bottom. All my friends deserted me, and I realized in feverish horror that I had racked up substantial debts and could no longer afford my decadent lifestyle. When I got clean and the sugary demon no longer fogged my brain, I discovered this was called “Graduation.”

It’s been many years since those unfortunate days, and I’ve never looked back. At Stop & Shop I’m never tempted as I stroll down the cookie aisle, even if my eye does wander over to the shelf of designer Oreos now available to unsuspecting consumers. I’ve dedicated myself to a healthy lifestyle. In fact, I’m on my way to the gym right now for a game of racquetball, and on the way home I’ll stop off for a Mocha Frappuccino.

That’s okay, right?

Same As It Ever Was…

16 Wednesday Oct 2013

Posted by Kath Carroll in Sports

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

Eli Manning, football, humor, New York, New York Giants, sports. Tom Coughlin, Super Bowl, the Giants

Few influences in life so shape a person’s psyche, mold his personality, and give him a broad context with which to interpret the world as do family, schooling, religious orientation, and being raised a Giants’ fan. My husband grew up on Long Island and that touch of fate made him what he is today—despondent.

Bleak times have descended upon him. If this were an aberration he could ride it out with sangfroid, but unfortunately history is not on his side. Apocalypse seems to haunt the Giants the way evil spirits follow those hunky guys of TV’s Supernatural. Twenty years ago the New York Football Giants riveted their fans with an astounding, dizzying spree, losing 10 of their 16 games, a statistic that belies the true horror that was the 1993 season. Fast forward to 2013. Seven games and six loses into the season, it seems cataclysm is once again in the playbook.

The names, of course, have changed. Back in 1993 the roster included Phil Simms, Jumbo Elliot, Dave Meggett, and Jeff Hostettler. They were our heroes and our goats. Often in the same play. So who among us could watch Eli float a screen pass directly into the waiting hands of Demarcus Ware (perfect aim; wrong color jersey) on the first play of the season or witness Steve Weatherford’s booming punt rushed back 89 yards for a Chief’s touchdown or see a hand off bounce off David Wilson and not nod our heads in appreciation of the historical significance of such inspired performances? It takes real talent to be so bad.

Back then, while trying to laugh through his pain, my husband once admitted that if it weren’t for nub teams, the Giants might have had no wins at all. This year we are the nub team. The Eagles?! Seriously?

If my husband were an ordinary fan who takes only a casual interest in the fortunes of his team, he might be spared some misery. But he is not. Game days are sacrosanct. The term “spoiler alert” was invented specifically for him. When he must be away, he records the game then sequesters himself from all outside communication until he can analyze every down for himself. On these days anyone who knows him and can’t keep a secret should also sequester themselves, for unwittingly leaking the final score makes the NSA-Edward Snowden brouhaha look like child’s play.

Once, my husband picked up the phone in the middle of watching a taped game to hear his father say, “The Giants are dead.” Robert Irvine and his sledgehammer could not have done more damage. Not even bonding over a hot smoker and a whole hog could have repaired this “Relationship Impossible.”

My husband is happy in our home because all that he values most highly is here. His heart swells when he thinks, not of his loving wife and children or our fine furnishings, but of the very first DVDs he burned from our collection of family videos:”Giants Among Men,” “Giants Forever,” and the 1986 Super Bowl. And Martha Stewart herself would be jealous of our table-decorating savvy. My secret? Drinking glasses imprinted with red and blue Giants’ helmets given away with a fill-up at Mobil two decades ago.

For my husband there is no escape from the injustices of this season. Every day his Giants are pilloried in the press. Here’s the nicest compliment the commentators have come up with: The Giants demonstrate “the ultimate level of futility.” It’s akin to Dante’s 9^th circle of Hell. After the fifth loss, Tom Coughlin “took the blame” by saying this: “The guy (Manning) is trying to play the best he can. He’s certainly trying to do too much.” And that is supposed to comfort us? It’s not as if he’s trying to throw a pass while juggling two jobs, two children, and two mortgages. “He’ll bounce back. He’ll bounce back,” Coughlin went on. Yeah, kinda like the ball on those missed receptions.

You would think there’s only so much a person can take, yet every weekend my husband dutifully sits on the couch, flips on the remote, and watches another game with gritty bravery and eternal hope. He learned such fortitude from a relentlessly cruel visual “boot camp.” The military is famous for its methods of making “men” out of “boys,” but scrubbing the barracks with a toothbrush is pantywaist compared to watching—and I quote—“Joe Pisarcik. Against the Eagles. Fourth quarter. Ten seconds to go. The game was won! It was won! All Pisarcik had to do was fall on the ball. But nooo. He fumbles the snap. The Eagles pick it up and run for a touchdown.” I think I need say no more than that my husband cut the teeth of his character on the 1966 (1-12-1) to 1983 (3-12-1) Giants.

From that suffering has emerged a man of insight, emotionally anchored, and with a deep reserve of patience. He can write employee performance reviews with a smile on his face; he can philosophize about the most inexplicable phenomena—the popularity of Duck Dynasty, for instance; and he can calmly explain, as many times as it takes, his order at the local Burger King.

This personal strength makes his weekly optimism and catastrophic disappointment that much more difficult to watch. He does not normally use bad language, nor is he violent, but when Eli throws an interception or Wilson drops a pass or Cordle misses a block, his tongue is loosed and, on a number of unfortunate occasions, my head has been tackled by an arm jerked uncontrollably toward the television in exasperation. Why does he put himself through such agony? He tells me it’s like a bad bruise or a festering wound—you keep touching it to see if it still hurts. And so he keeps watching.

Now that the season is what they euphemistically call a “building year,” he’s begun to reminisce about better, victorious days, recalling specific plays the way a woman remembers the birth of her children: “1986. Denver. Super Bowl. It was one of the first touchdowns of the game. It was still sunny. The Giants were driving into the sun. Phil was having a superlative game on his way to a 22 for 25 day. Phil hits Bavaro cutting across the middle on a 20-yard slant. Touchdown. That was when you and I first started going together. Those were the good times,” he said wistfully last week, and I knew he wasn’t talking about our relationship.

But still I see a glimmer in his eyes, hear a buoyancy in his speech when he talks about the Giants. There is always next year and the year after that. Until they turn it around, he can settle down with a Giants’ glass of beer, pop a DVD into the player, and relive the time when his team truly were Giants Among Men.

So, What Up Wit Wit Love, Kath?

16 Wednesday Oct 2013

Posted by Kath Carroll in The Formative Years

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

Broward County, Connecticut, Florida, humor, Miami, New York Giants, news, news reports, optical illusions, tourists

Hi, and welcome to Wit Love, Kath, my love letters about the funny side of life. Here I’ll look at the quirks and absurdities of family life, national and world news, entertainment, politics (oh, wait, I just mentioned entertainment), sports, and all those unexpected, bizarre moments that make life worthwhile with humor, with skepticism, with irony, and always wit love.

I grew up in a pink stucco house in Hollywood, Florida, surrounded, not by the radiance of celebrities as in that other Hollywood, but by the relentless sun (except for the daily deluge), which produces, like a science-fiction laser, grapefruit you can use as bowling balls, dachshund-sized avocados, and toads as round as dinner plates.

School field trips were spent at Parrot Jungle (once home to Pinky, the “high-wire, bicycle-riding cockatoo,” where we each had our picture taken with 5 macaws perched on our scrawny outstretched arms); Monkey Jungle (“where the humans are caged and monkeys run wild”), and Gatorland (“when the sun goes down, the swamp comes alive”). Try fitting education like this into the Common Core.

Spending your formative years in this over-the-top, larger-than-life (see, even the adjectives are abnormally big) weirdness-incubating local does something to you. One can only witness so many middle-aged and end-aged tourists in speedos before the mind is irreversibly warped. Same goes for the absolute cemetification of every square inch of available land. Even the strip malls have strip malls. The blistering sun bouncing off all that concrete really does fry your brain.

Don’t believe me? How else to explain this recent development: towns in southern Broward and Dade counties are using the optical illusion of decreasingly spaced lines to trick drivers into believing they are going faster than they are, thus causing them to “tap the break,” according to a local official. What’s next? M.C. Escher as stairwell architect?

And when your newspaper has a regular category called “Snakebites,” you know there’s something twisted going on. Here’s the latest headline from the Miami Herald, printed Sunday, October 13: “Man Bitten by Rattlesnake in Broward County while Helping Turtle Cross 1-75.” Couldn’t this unfortunate scout find any old ladies to help across the road? In South Florida?

With these kinds of daily, riveting reports, it’s no surprise that I became a news and comics page junkie at a young age. I read the Miami Herald before school and the Hollywood Sun-Tattler when I came home. I listened to Dan Rather before he had “courage” (I suspect he spent time in South Florida before this pronouncement, as I and my friends fully understood his counsel). Garry Trudeau taught me more about politics than any civics class, and Dave Barry and The Far Side’s Gary Larson gave me laugh-out-loud validation that I was not crazy.

In college I studied absurdist literature—the likes of Samuel Beckett and Nikoli Gogol. My adviser couldn’t understand what I saw in it, but I never blinked an eye. Two tramps eternally waiting? A human pack mule? Disembodied voices? Got it. A man who loses his nose? Check. In fact, I think it was found floating in a canal along Alligator Alley.

I now live in Connecticut, where the state flower is the rock, squirrels think they’re birds except when they’re playing kamikaze in front of a moving car, and on any given day deer, wild turkeys, chipmunks, squirrels, foxes, ground hogs, rabbits, skunks, raccoons, and/or fisher cats can parade through our yard and nom our garden. It may not be as exciting as Florida, but, hey, at least none of them are wearing speedos.

	Pam Webb on A Smart Choice
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	William McWhinney on Couldn’t Be Better?
	Kath Carroll on A Smart Choice
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Wit Love, Kath

~ My love letters about the funny side of life

Author Archives: Kath Carroll

Yes. No. Maybe. Whatever.

Shopping for the Whirrfect Woman

Getting There is All the Fun?

Twisted Confessions of a (Former) Oreo Addict

Same As It Ever Was…

So, What Up Wit Wit Love, Kath?

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