Fried & True

by Fay Jacobs

September 2004

  LETTERS FROM CAMP REHOBOTH

  ROUTINE MAINTENANCE

  A Borscht Belt comedian once said, “Anyone who owns their own home deserves it.” He was being snide. He was referring to me. Like everyone else, we’ve been spending recent sunny days taking care of all the exterior maintenance that must get done between the last beach day and that sudden cold snap that makes it unpleasant to run around in shorts mowing, mulching and, excuse the expression, spreading your seed.

  Over the past few weeks home maintenance drama has reared its ugly head at Schnauzerhaven, and I, for one, am glad I can still laugh. Actually, I’m glad I can still stand up, given the amount of Kudzu and other propagating weeds I’ve bent over to yank from my shrubbery. Naturally, I bent over only when people I knew drove by. That’s not curb appeal.

  Embarrassing as it was, that was nothing compared to the garage door incident. On my way to work one morning I backed out of the garage and ran over a plastic flower pot. No big deal. I’d sweep it up later. It was just debris from the dead geraniums from our front stoop, now replaced by the soon to be dead Mums.

  But as I backed down the driveway, pushing the remote control to close the garage, the door stopped a foot from the garage floor. That would be a Schnauzer escape route for sure. Damn. The broken pot had rolled directly in front of the little electronic eye on the garage door.

  I brought the door back up and got out of the car in my tidy little morning meeting suit, and swept up the pile of dirt and plastic pot shards.

  The same kind of luck that had me crouching in the shrubs only when friends drove by now had me returning to the car at the exact moment our sprinkler system activated and shot me and the interior of my car with the kind of spray normally used to separate fornicating dogs. I own my own home. I deserved it.

  Actually, when we first had that sprinkler system installed, its timer-regulated debut performance coincided with my letting the dogs out. One of the sprinkler heads came up directly under a squatting Schnauzer who clearly got a surprise and a complimentary enema. But I digress.

  Here’s a thought: Why do we spend more time shopping for supplies for home maintenance than actually doing the projects? Come on, you know you do it. Gotta get those outdoor furniture covers. And the Styrofoam spigot covers to prevent frost in the water lines. And don’t forget the waterproofing for the deck. This past Sunday we lollygagged up and down the aisles at Lowe’s, pondering the merits of a long pole with a nozzle on it and then spending considerable time selecting the perfect lawn fertilizer—so much time in fact that we ran out of time to clean the gutters or treat the crabgrass. Is this something that’s a choice or are we born this way?

  But by far my favorite home maintenance moment recently was the discovery that I could be a contestant on that terrifying, chilling, hit TV show. Not Fear Factor, not Lost, not even Live with Regis and Kelly—but the HGTV show House Detective, where the home inspector tells you all the hideous things festering in your basement. It started when I went to our spare closet to liberate my winter clothes. What were these strange white stains on the black pants? The splotches of grey powder on the brown sweater? Mildew! And I don’t even live on a boat anymore.

  Not only did this situation necessitate my having to buy back my clothes in bulk from the dry cleaner, but the interior of the closet and walls in the room had to be washed down with a bleach solution. Now there’s a lovely way to spend a pretty fall day. I really have to thank my spouse for taking on that chore, although I’m reasonably sure she just didn’t want to see me wearing Playtex Living Gloves and cursing like a washer woman.

  Of course, once the surface mildew was banished we had to deal with the real problem: (cue the scary music) The Crawl Space. How I ever came to own a home with something called a crawl space is beyond me. I am not a member of the Addams Family. Just the thought of the space and the things that could crawl in it make me nuts. I picture a certain scene from Raiders of the Lost Ark.

  In this case, curious George, I mean Bonnie, gleefully volunteered to crawl on her belly under the house to see exactly what was growing, oozing, fulminating, or otherwise turning to penicillin in the muddy petrie dish under our spare room. Is there a fungus among us? Is my life partner under the house with some nascent life form? As Bonnie shimmied away from view, I stood by, reading aloud from the newspaper: “three bedroom, two bath CONDO….”

  “The moisture barrier seems okay,” Bonnie yells.

  What the hell is that? To me, a moisture barrier is a Totes umbrella.

  “I don’t see any black mold,” comes a faraway voice. Is that good? Is green mold better? Does it have anything to do with the stuff that’s in plastic containers at the back of my fridge?

  Eventually my mate emerged, smudged and mud-caked, saying we needed a professional opinion. Which, we got, thanks to a recommendation from a trustworthy realtor.

  Here’s the upshot. We’ve got a moisture problem under the house thanks to a badly graded property and not enough vents. No black mold, though. So we don’t have to bulldoze. “It’s not bad. I’ve seen lots worse around here,” said the contractor.

  So we’re going to disinfect under the house, install a mess of vents with undulating fans, hook ‘em up to electric and blow out the crawlspace on regular intervals. My guess is we’ll be dry as a bone in no time but the house will periodically sound like a 747 taking off. Oh, and installing the vents will cost slightly more than an Olivia Cruise. But then I own my own home. I deserve it.

  October 2004

  LETTERS FROM CAMP REHOBOTH

  COW PARADE

  As a distraction from the presidential race, Bonnie, who feared I was headed for the funny farm from those moronic talking heads on TV, took me to an actual farm instead.

  As a distraction from the results of said election, which I am not going to mention, as I just ate, I will share my rural adventures with you.

  Our destination was Hillsville, Virginia, in the southwest section of the state—in hillbilly vernacular, Bonnie’s father’s “home place” and home to some of Bonnie’s most treasured relatives.

  Feeling like that traveling gnome in the TV ads, I tried to unwind as we headed down Route 81 into some beautiful fall foliage and weird sights.

  First there was Foamhenge—a life size Styrofoam replica of England’s Stonehenge, propped in an open field off the highway. Somebody had waaaay too much time on their hands.

  Next, on an even more rural route I saw my first wild turkey outside a shot glass.

  Zipping past signs for Taters, Maters & Pumpkins, we arrived in tiny Hillsville.

  The relatives were great, welcoming us with bounteous hospitality and politely overlooking our Kerry-Edwards bumper sticker.

  In between a local pumpkin festival, biscuits and gravy, and a visit to a historic mill along the Blue Ridge Parkway, I glimpsed a newspaper headline about John Kerry “outing” Mary Cheney.

  Oh, for pity’s sake. She’s been a professional lesbian for years. Wanting the scoop, I grabbed my cell phone but found no signal anywhere throughout the state park. Desperate, I eyed two female park rangers who looked, very, um, strong and handsome in their uniforms. Should I sidle up and say, “How ‘bout that big old lesbo Mary Cheney???” Not only was my cell phone out of range, but my gaydar didn’t seem to be working either. Couldn’t tell. Chickened out.

  As we drove past the New Hope Primitive Baptist Church, where Bonnie vaguely recalled attending church services with her grandparents, my cell phone warbled. Despite the static I thought I recognized Kathy from the CAMP office wanting to know if I wished to comment on the Mary Cheney story to the News Journal.

  If I knew something about it I would have. Before I lost the signal entirely I explained that I was in a rural news blackout and couldn’t possibly comment intelligently.

  My god, I was missing the biggest lesbian flap of all time. No cell service, no internet, and, when we got back home, nothing on TV but Nascar, god help me. I was so frustrated
I wanted to go out into the woods and poop with the bears.

  Resigned to complete ignorance about what was undoubtedly hot news, I told Bonnie I was going out to visit Uncle Seldon’s cows. A gaggle of relatives watched, amused, since nobody before me had ever announced a cow visit. Tromping through the field, careful not to step on what I was told were cow pies, I came to an area of taller grass.

  “I wouldn’t cross there,” Bonnie said, chasing after me.

  “Why not? There are footprints here, somebody’s been through.”

  Whereupon I plunged ankle deep in water, realizing too late, that the footprints belonged to Flossy and her friends. One look at my bovine buddies and I knew where the cheese brand Laughing Cow came from. Bonnie couldn’t resist either.

  “Hey, cows, what do you know about this Mary Cheney thing?” They turned their backs and lumbered off. I tried not to take it personally.

  Chagrined, and with soggy socks, I returned to the farmhouse to provide more guffaws for the kin.

  “What are the hay bales for?” I asked.

  “Well, we’ll bring some into the barn and then we’ll…”

  “Why have them delivered to the field if you are going to move them to the barn?” I asked earnestly.

  “Delivered ????” an aunt stuttered.

  Call me pathologically urban, but I thought giant farm vehicles delivered the bales directly to the field from some kind of hay bale dispensary. Who knew that the field itself manufactured the hay and a farm vehicle came along, scooped it up and spit it out as a bale. Duh. For the rest of the weekend the clan retold my hay bale faux pas to whoever arrived at the house. They enjoyed toying with the damned Yankee more than watching Dale Earnhardt, Jr.

  But alas, eventually it was time to go North. We’d had such a genuinely wonderful visit I almost forgot about the presidential race, not to mention my ignorance of the biggest dyke drama since the unfortunate Anne Heche.

  We bade a fond farewell to Hillsville and headed home. Despite my best attempts, I was still incommunicado, with only the farm report and bluegrass music on the radio. Not a word about the Veep’s Uber-lesbian daughter.

  On Skyline Drive, frustrated by the news vacuum, I suggested we sight-see. “There’s a waterfall at the next rest area described as the closest waterfall to any parking lot in the Shenandoah Valley—only a 1.5 mile round trip from the parking lot.”

  So we got out and walked. Straight down a long and winding trail. The descent was tricky, but not too awful.

  We finally made it the three quarters of a mile down to the waterfall, and it was indeed a lovely sight.

  Not so lovely was the sight of me, wheezing and bitching on the way back up. Geez, it didn’t seem that steep on the way down. I tried to keep a game face for those dumb folks still passing us on their way to the stupid waterfall, but the climb up was an ordeal. I needed a Sherpa, pitons and oxygen.

  Amid my struggle to ascend, a man passed us, carrying a three-year-old on his shoulders.

  “Things could be worse,” Bonnie said, “you could be carrying that weight.”

  “I am,” I said, “but it’s on my thighs.”

  With aching calves and burning lungs, I rested on a boulder mid-way up and wondered if it would be fatally embarrassing to call a park ranger to haul me out on a gurney?

  Eventually we made it back to the parking lot base camp, where I leaned on the hood of the car, gasping for air.

  “Gotta stop smoking,” I said.

  “You don’t smoke,” said Bonnie.

  “Right,” I said. “Then why was this such a bitch?”

  “We’re old,” she said. “Those endorphins will kick in soon and you’ll feel great.”

  Well, my endorphins did kick in, but it wasn’t until I finally got my hands on a newspaper and read, with disgust, that Lynn Cheney called Kerry’s mention of her daughter a “cheap and tawdry political trick.”

  That just goes to show how ashamed she must be of her own lesbian daughter. You’d think Kerry had outed her six year old child. No, Kerry merely referred to her 35-year old political operative daughter who was running the campaign that supported a constitutional amendment against her own lifestyle.

  Forget the trek up from the waterfall. After this election, gay pride is the uphill climb. I’m rested and ready.

  December 2004

  LETTERS FROM CAMP REHOBOTH

  HOLIDAY HELL

  Apparently it does come from toilet seats.

  Bad luck, that is. One night during this holiday season, a friend ran shrieking from bathroom to bathroom in my house. At first I thought it was the bean dip, but no, he was just noisily slamming the lids down on the commodes.

  “Whew!” he said, returning from the relay, according to the Feng Shui guru, if a toilet seat lid is up, money flies out of the house. Lid down, the cash stays. I think it works with luck, too.”

  Like we had any cash or good luck to go flying out in the first place. But I humored him and promised to keep the lids shut. Then I promptly forgot about it, Kohlers resuming their flaps up position.

  Now I’m rethinking this Feng Shui-bad luck connection. Within days of the lavatory warning I was struck down by some kind of kidney infection. “Maybe you got a stone,” the ER doctor said. If there was a stone in there, it was Mick Jagger.

  Consequently, I spent from the Sunday before Christmas to New Year’s Eve running a bizarre fever, moaning and watching TV. Although it’s tough to know what came first, the moaning or the TV.

  Have you watched in the daytime? It’s enough to make you sick, so imagine somebody feverish dealing with it. You get reruns of Magnum P.I. (Selleck acting butch), and Murder She Wrote (they should investigate Jessica Fletcher as the world’s most prolific serial killer; wherever she goes, somebody turns up dead). Then there’s Montel (lowlifes screw up and blame their parents), Judge Judy (lowlifes get punished); Life in the ER (lowlife gets shot) or Dr. Phil (lowlifes on parade).

  Ordinarily I like Diane Sawyer and Good Morning America, but even she started to rile me. If I see one more wedding dress segment, interview with mothers-to-be or honeymoon getaway promotion I’m going to scream. Would it kill them to have gay people on once in a while? We lead very interesting lives. Would it hurt to include gay couples in cooking segments, health and relationship features or, heaven forfend, those damn wedding stories? If they’re going for human interest, it would be human and actually interesting.

  But as bad as the programming is, it’s the commercials that defy logic. Daytime watchers must be fools for “only on TV” product sales. You know, the “For just $19.95, we’ll send you the (insert superfluous invention here)….”

  Wanna paint? There’s the Edgemaster—with the built in self-guiding beveled edge. “Guides itself without getting so much as a drop of paint places it doesn’t belong—no need for tape, no hassle or we’ll buy it back! Paint ANY room with ANY paint in just one hour!!!” Hell, I can paint any room in an hour but nobody in their right mind would let me.

  Then there’s Gator Grip—“a tool that replaces a whole tool kit! Fits over a thousand nuts, bolts and fasteners for just $19.99. But wait! It gets better!” screams the announcer. Call now and we’ll throw in this Ratchet Handle absolutely FREE, you get both for just $19.99.

  If you didn’t get the FREE ratchet handle, what would you do? Excuse me, I’ll stick this on my finger and screw a 24×18 deck together. “Reach any loose screw!” Hmmm, that’s you, folks, reaching for a VISA card.

  I loved the Original Pillow Back Rest (just two payments of $19.99!). The announcer shrieks of comfort at its best and a pioneering shape, perfect to lean against to watch TV, use flat out as a pillow, or save nuts and berries in its little hidden side pockets. I’d stash Ambien there so I wouldn’t have to watch this stuff.

  “But Wait! If you order RIGHT NOW, you get a special pillow case, to fit your Original Pillow Back Rest!” Hell, if you didn’t get it FREE you’d need three seamstresses and an architect to design a pillow ca
se for this lumpy sack of foam. If I wanted to prop up on something that lumpy I’d lean on a Schnauzer.

  BUT THERE’S MORE!!! My favorite ad is for Moving Men. “Not those moving men,” hawks the announcer, to video of moving trucks, “these Moving Men!” (video of hand holding plastic cocktail coasters). “These Moving Men make moving furniture fun! Even a loaded bookcase (video of bookcase doing a triple salcow across floor) practically floats along! If these aren’t the best helpers ever, send them back for a full refund!” Including, presumably, compensation for lumbar surgery. BUT THERE’S MORE!!! Call now and we’ll double your order! 8 Moving Men for just $19.99!

  I’d seen the ad three times before I realized they never showed how to put these Tiddly Winks under the hefty furniture in the first place. But wait! Maybe if you call right now they’ll throw in Ahnold Shwartzenegger.

  I got it! To get Moving Men under a piece of furniture, dismantle it with Gator Grip, then use Edgemaster to patch the paint where you effortlessly slid the armoire into the wall. Rest up from hernia surgery on your amazing Pillow Back Rest. Find Percocet stashed in its little pockets.

  The best thing about recovering from my bad luck mystery illness was the cessation of enforced daytime TV. But, the fact is that good luck wasn’t exactly breaking down our door. I’ve never won Powerball, Publisher’s Clearing House, or so much as a dime at the Slots.

  So what can it hurt to shut a toilet seat? I realize that buckets of cash and good luck may have already escaped (the porcelain horse is out of the corral????) but I’m looking for a sea change of luck right about now.

  I hope the coming year brings good health and good fortune to my household and yours. And that Diane Sawyer hears my plea and gives us a little homosexual parity on Good Morning America. And that while my back is turned, Bonnie isn’t seduced (But there’s MORE!!!) into purchasing the Edgemaster.

  But heck, the Gator Grip might come in handy if the toilet lid falls off from all the slamming. Keep yer lids on, kids.