Ya’ got it???

Ya got it? That’s the question I heard from THREE helpful male employees of Ollie’s while struggling to carry an 8-foot carpet through the aisles, up to the cash register, and finally out to my car last week. The dog had peed on the front hall carpet once again. So, off to Ollie’s Discount Store I drove to just replace the thing rather than scrub and attempt to deodorize it as usual.
I found the perfect 8′ round, wool, traditional Wilton – under no less than a dozen other choices. I pressed the “Get Assistance in the Carpet Department” button and waited. And waited. And waited. Yep, you guessed it. Me, myself, and I rolled and heaved the other carpets off the stack until we finally got to the right one. As I’m hoisting my choice onto my 5′3″ inch, slender frame’s shoulder, a 20-something, 6′ + tall male employee arrives and asks me, “Ya’ got it?” “Yes, thank you,” I manage to wheeze out. (Well, yeah, I’ve got it NOW; I’ve done all the heavy lifting.) I make my way to the check-out line, panting and puffing along the narrow aisles barely avoiding multiple collisions with lighted Christmas Tree, Reindeer and North Pole displays. Another male employee – a bagger mind you – not anyone minding the cash register calls to me, “Ya got it?” Again, same question to the short, small-boned woman lugging an 8-ft carpet through the store. I nod my head yes; didn’t have the energy to whisper out a “Yes, thanks.” The third employee, the MANAGER of the store (easily 300 lbs and well over 6′ tall – a burly, beefy, linebacker sort) who has watched me struggle through the check-out process yells over to me, “Ya GOT it?” He, like the other two men, made NO attempt to actually remove the weighty burden from my shoulder. Their “effort” on my behalf was purely vocal! Calling out “Ya’ got it?” to a woman lugging a large roll of carpet is not being a gentleman in any way. It is simply more proof that good manners in this country have been, well, irretrievably trampled.

Zombies Not Allowed To Eat At Mall!

That’s it. I’ve had it. I have HAAAAADDDDDD it! This is what my sister-in-law Joan says when she’s ticked off. You can tell she’s boiling by the drawn out “haaaaddd.” And you’d best get out of the way; she’s a thrower! Well, today, I’ve had it. I’ve haaaaaaadddddddddd it. Here’s why:
In this morning’s paper, there’s a small article about the Dress Like A Zombie Contest held yesterday at the local mall’s Barnes and Noble store. Families were encouraged to participate in hopes of winning tickets to “Evil Dead: The Musical!
So, the family of four pictured above (Please note that the children I’m talking about in this post are ages 7 and 9 – not the big, tall, scary teenager on the left!) comes dressed as zombies. The look can only be described as preppy-ghoulish. Blood. Goo. “Latex” facial skin falling off! Dark circles under the eyes. And brightly colored clothes that would be perfectly appropriate at any of the private schools in town. They were the clear winners. Of course, that was before little Caleigh wanted to go to the food court to get something to eat. Nope. No can do.
Way too risky. Mall security would not let the family leave the Barnes and Noble store to enter into the mall. Apparently, they were worried that other mall patrons might be terrified by the zombie characters’ “moaning, groaning or walking like a zombie.” To me though, the real topper comes when the mall manager is asked to explain why the family cannot go to the food court. He said, and I quote syllable for syllable, “How would we identify them if they were to commit a crime?” It’s thinking like this that I find truly scary.

Double Hemlock with a Twist Please

Hemlock!! Yummy.

Keep your needles, your feeding tubes, and your ventilator hose off and out of my body.
I have no intention of dying in a hospital hooked up to every blinking, beeping machine invented in the last century. Just give me a big ol’ supply of morphine patches and sleeping pills and send me back to my beautiful farm to die in peace!
Euthanasia is not a dirty word. Just say it out loud a few times. “Youthhh-nnn-asiaaa.” See how nicely it rolls off the tongue? It almost seems like its definition should be “climbing above the clouds in the Himalayas to have tea with young monks.”
OK, now I’m going to break the Zen mood. Ever wonder why our health care system is such an expensive mess? Well, in addition to out of control medical malpractice costs and claim-denying insurance companies, 1% of the population accounts for 35 percent of health care spending. I get this straight from a wise pulmonologist who (every day) visits these 1% – the very old, terminally ill, pitiful few who have absolutely no hope for recovery. He sees these “patients” hooked up to machines, being fed intravenously, defecating on themselves, resuscitated by CPR (often with the added bonus of painful broken ribs) lying in hospital beds for months – even years. They’re called patients – but there’s nothing that medicine can do to cure them or even help them. Medicine is just prolonging their existence. I, for one, do not plan on staying around simply to have my Depends changed or my grilled salmon served through a feeding tube.

The absolute last thing I care to be remembered for is having boobs that hung down so low I could tuck them into my waistband instead of wearing a bra. (May my dear grandmother rest in peace…)

Bring on the hospice care at home. Bring on the hemlock. Bring me a cigar. Just please, don’t bring me any holier-than-thou politicians preaching about the sanctity of my life. They obviously don’t know me!