Stranger EGG Danger

While many males with an eye for pleasure are self-admitted ‘leg men’, my mind is a bit cracked and hard boiled so I turn towards other femur-free parts of the chicken with an ‘Egg yen’ as an alternative. Yes beyond the insatiable draw of black coffee and bulky robes with my initials on them, I enjoy unfertilized chicken embryos, preferably scrambled, atop buttered white toast points to begin the day. Bacon, gravy soaked biscuits and a pig in a blanket's (like me) perennial favorite – pancakes, are all fine too but nothing feeds my sunrise craving like waiting for a first class egging to ensue. 

As compared to some of the aforementioned diet-busting breakfast selections, you might think that I am an EGG-ficionado for health reasons and concerns about my advancing age and nutritional needs.  While some of this is true (I am indeed getting old), banal n’ bland eggs are not always as safe a choice as one might think. No, lurking beyond the fluffy and apparently harmless geography of white and yellow, is a disturbing reality which all too often haunts me to societal disquiet just as it did to Hyde and that Jekyll fellow.

You see it is not really the fault of the egg alone but it is the combustive combination of adding my own selfish perversions into the perfect breakfast equation. For who among us cannot admit to consuming fried yolk and albumen with the addition of luxurious flavor enhancers such as cheese, salsas, and seasonings to taste?  Indeed I too do not take my flamed-Jane eggs plain as I insist on sullying their sultry surfaces and rep by dotting the pile with a shake o’ salt and a liberal dusting of pep.

Clearly when I’m inside and church has let out, Denny’s and IHOP will never seem stranger-safe, to high society’s gentrified, their table-high progeny, and lost souls of trusting faith. Invariably those who dare proximity to the puffing of pepper over my plated egg faire, are fraught with risk from a collateral mid-bite, egg-raid air-scare. For when atomized pepper takes leave of its senses to swiftly stride through my stuffed sinus peninsula, all bets are off; since in seconds all soups will be egg-dropped and Sunday Seersucker's for sure-a,  will be Pollock-spotted masterpiece canvases - but in tossed EGG-tempera!

Mars and Venus

Fortunately when I was a young pup, my parents taught me the value of reading along with eating so with every Pop Tart consumed, also too was a paragraph on high fructose syrup and preservatives. I soon developed a rather extensive vocabulary in all the ingredients crammed into Lucky Charms beyond the oats to make them ‘magically delicious’.  This early education came in handy later when I finally ventured out on my own in the world by 50 years of age looking for things to read, eat, and eliminate all at the same time.

Naturally at least part of this skill has proven helpful in navigating the ways of the world especially when I travel. No it is not often I find a full place setting in restrooms or an edible morsel that has not already been passed over by vermin, but frequently in foreign lands it is important to read and enter the correct gender door to the toilet. With this in mind, why then is it so difficult to mark doors properly and legibly so that anyone - blind, dumb, or confused (or all three like me), can determine their gender and choose an appropriate loo to lounge in?

While I have accepted the dull lanky stick figure form of the male, and equally uncreative female stick icon in a dress as the representative placard for restrooms in America, it is not necessarily so overseas. Other countries prefer to reflect the fact that people often have tiny heads in comparison to their bloated bodies, and depending on how much spicy curry slurry they’ve consumed they might be in a blurry hurry to find the right water closet fast. So if this is true, why are their icons so confusing to my uncreative mind. Is the restroom for males the ‘fat running blob in a hat’ or is it the ‘jumping blob with a sack’ – and who knows which room is outfitted for babies since by definition all babies look like blobs?

Forget this Mars and Venus stuff since nobody really knows the gender of any planet. I don’t really care what the RIGHT symbols look like as long as if we can just agree on choosing ONE universal standard to read that applies to the appropriate gender in question. I’m not really worried though if I wander into the wrong toilet as I reach advanced age as long as I only travel in Spanish speaking countries. Because at least there nobody’s offended if we geezers misread the signs between the Senor or Senores, because when you gotta’ go any port in a storm is OK, when you have a ‘SENIOR movement' !

VanGoo Gut

Despite being farm raised, and on really special occasions barn fresh, when it comes to appreciating the fine arts I am in a special class. Oh sure it may be a really LOW class with only 3 pupils counting myself and both eyes, but it’s true I do enjoy all kinds of unique art. Since both of my parents were involved professionally in the arts, it’s no wonder from an early age I developed a honed, high-class AIR of sophistication on the subject - though that may be just the talkin’ broccoli and beans barking.

Sadly my own artistic skills have been more typically limited to the scratching of straight lines along the back of a ruler, but my wife says it irritates her so I try to contain myself. Oh sure I’m a master at blobbing fluorescent paint by the numbers upon fancy black velvet, but as my eyes age it is getting harder to pay homage to the passing of Elvis by reading to black lights in the bathroom. I’m lucky though since I still have at least one artistic outlet that I carry right on the FRONT of the only clean shirt I have left on my back after taxes.

Since I’m naturally clumsy and as a necessity must maintain my road-hugging girth, I am forced to eat at least ten times a day. Don’t worry despite my Yeti dimensions I am health conscious and always demonstrate the ‘split side’ of my personality when Dr. Oz is on by turning my back to the TV, before eating a magazine of Girl Scout cookies and a carafe of cow. Inadvertently however, during my frequent feedings, can I help it if I’m genetically part sow so not all of the colorful chow that I plow actually makes it downtown, but rather ends up on top of my shirt though I don’t know how.  

While a top-drawer gallery is the way most folks get to see the best of abstract expressionism, my artistic dribbles n’ daily drool make it far easier for me, since my canvas-covered abs-sack n’ pecs dresses in ‘em. Yes despite the best that a jug of bleach can leach from my frocks, over time all of my sticky shirts look like unseen smocks from a closet of  the late Jackson Pollock.  Needless to say by day’s end, my fun drum of a ‘tum’ becomes a bit dotted, spotted, and sprayed by colorful food trays and an array of buffets making me truly a classy part of all things ART! 

Earthen aWARE

Despite the fact that I live in a dusty hovel, burrowing  ‘mole people’ like myself will never find a good career path in gardening. Oh sure at our local bum-slumber parties, I can dish the dirt with the best of them, or carry my share of the water after a couple of Big Gulps. But sadly, the only way my thumb and other assorted fat n’ hairy parts will ever turn green is if I DYE ‘em and go to necrosis heaven.

Since I used to help grow and manage plants, ‘Produce’ has always been in my vocabulary, except in all truthfulness, those places were of the mechanized variety rather than the organic.  As far as floral arrangements, veggies, and shrubs go though, no matter how hard I’ve tried to learn PISTIL shooting I have never been good in flower beds. Sadly, even the worms won’t trust me with their silk plants or sheets until I pony up a capful of Mulberry wine as a worthy bribe for their time and attention.

You see when I was a kid, my Hillbilly parents’ bad JEANS along with those silver spoons they gave me as a rattle, obviously made me allergic to four letter dirty words like ‘hard’, ‘yard’, & ‘work’.  Clearly my nicknames of ‘Bull’ and ‘Dozer’, have more to do with how I lie and snore since making the earth move has never been my strong suit. I guess I need to call a spade a spayed and accept that regardless of how many blisters I suffer from shoveling, I’ll never make it as a good gardener, politician, or veterinarian.

Yeah, digging holes should be left to picky professionals like nature’s woodpeckers and those brawny top-drawer landscapers with hemorrhoids. Tan-less larvae like me have an obligation to step-up and make our own sacrifices for society by testing soft recliners, cool air conditioning, and sweet tea - right? So what if I’m not ‘earthy’ and my only groundbreaking achievement is pulverizing concrete when I walk across it?  At least this way I can still CRACK something up without trying to be somebody that I’m not, like a funny crash test dummy or a belt-less portly plumber!

Artful Dodger

Well since it is getting warmer, we have begun our weekend trips to acquire fine objet d’art from random strangers and their ‘garages d’ junk’! I am not a picky picker like those know-it-all cable TV show folks. No, I like my artwork served strange with a just a dash of daffy delight on the side.

My wife is no slop slouch either, though she probably would deny it. I have clearly infected the spousal unit with my keen eye and ability to be most attracted to the MOST UN-attractive hand-made art available. That is harder to do than you may think. It’s one thing to find horrible artwork atrocities best only approached with an oversized long-reach camping fork, but quite another to buy the stuff, and really WANT it too regardless of cost.

My wife found this particular piece. It truly fit the BILL of being so far off-the-wall that we found it in a box on the floor. Hand carved from wood with a truly universally appealing decorator theme of a wild-eyed watermelon fan in prison pj’s and red boots. We tested this little gem out on impressionable young children and it actually made them cry. I have never seen anything so beautiful in my life, have you?

So the next time you are out and about at a swap meet or a second-hand shop, don’t just go for the gold but check out some of that oxidized tin too. Yes if you’re lucky you can be just like my wife and get your hands on your own homely treasure. Don’t worry nobody’s looking. There is no reason to dodge your inner art critic – embrace the tasteless and taste the juicy fruit of your desire. Fear not because it only cost a buck . . . and you can always spit out the seeds!