Teddy Bear Cannibal Massacre

by ed. Tim W. Lieder

  wife lifting his plate. Lift. Look. Run. The men are very

  quiet as they do this. Go ahead, be very loud. They won’t

  ask you to help because they are married and it was in a

  clause in their vow.

  Now I suppose some man is going to tell me that he

  helps clear the plates. If you do, you are a sucker, get out

  while you can.

  Divorced women….they are still married when it

  comes to clearing plates. They automatically jump up. The

  only divorced woman who doesn’t clear plates is Liz

  Taylor. Children who want to clear plates are clearly pod

  people in the making but you can’t clear plates because

  your parents will scream “WHAT ARE YOU, CRAZY!?

  YOU’RE GOING TO DROP THAT!” Unless your family

  has a caterer in which case, the pod women *still* jump up

  and down to oversee the plate clearers because….they have

  to do something, you bought them a hutch to hold all those

  plates.

  So I sat there. What was I supposed to do? Stand?

  Sit? Clear? Escape? I am lost in a sea of people who understand what is expected. But then again, I was thrown out of my niece’s Barbie hotel last week. She had security

  escort my dolls out. So it’s not like I am one with the pod. I have options. I can go in the kitchen and pretend I

  am one of them, but clearly I am not. I still stumble

  drunkenly into clubs and Hustler and these women are

  talking about hysterectomies and nipple chafing. Eww run.

  These are the very monsters who order huge plates of food

  and then say “I will have a diet coke, tee hee.” We are not

  amused. I swear to god, at moments like this near my

  family, I am amazed these Stepford Pod Women get sex at

  all. I really am. It’s a whole room of Special Hair Barbies.

  Live in person. On ice. With Happy Family Volvos. I am clearly not cool with the kids any longer

  because I cannot fit in an Ikea tube to the playhouse. So it’s

  old people or the men. Old people, there’s a no. It’s totally

  YaYa Sisterhood over there. Run before they send you to

  the store for Depends undergarments.

  If you go to the men they will think you want them.

  My friend Skin once told me this and I never believed him.

  I do now, Skin. I really do. One husband of a friend told me

  it was the way I said “fine and how are you.” He said I

  clearly was saying “I want you.” He had a Magnum PI

  mustache but the handlebar version. No PT Barnum, I did

  not want you. Wow, no one told me I had that effect. I

  totally missed my calling as a phone sex operator. Maybe

  it is because I am laid back and do not have that look on

  my face like their wife that screams “WHERE ARE THE

  KIDS NOW?” It’s okay, their wives are thinking you want

  their husbands too. My sister told me that her own friends

  thought I wanted their husbands. Most of them look like

  ABC sitcom dads. Guys, who are you kidding? You people

  had to do the Lift-Look-Run to get into this room. No one

  wants you. You have been trained. Do you realize the

  amount of retraining it would take if we did want you? You have been minivaned and taught how to mow the lawn to drown out your wife’s bitching. It’s all downhill from here. No, we want you right now for one reason. The men’s area of the house is where all the uncomplicated talk without the bitch factor is. Bob is not over here asking Dan if he likes his new hairdo. John is not asking Tom if his ass

  looks large in those trousers.

  For instance, the women are in that room over there

  saying: “That Mary, do you know what she did to me,”

  followed by widened eyes and all the other women

  gathering around for a story with a hushed “NO,

  WHAT?!” question.

  Not you men. You would just say: “Hey Brad, that

  Mary….she’s a slut.”

  This is followed by much nodding and one of the

  men, usually the one with the most hair, he says “DON’T I

  KNOW IT” like he personally knows. He gets a high five

  from another guy and then he hands you a cigar. Note: If you have gay men in your family this could

  be a very different scenario. The bitch factor will be coming

  from their area as well. But it will be better groomed, more

  sarcastic and highly amusing.

  The evasion of the clearing of the plates does not

  work if you are married, yet at the dinner party without

  spouse. They know you’re married; start clearing old

  people’s plates. Either old people or the kids. We bought

  you a blender; we could care less if you are solo. Start

  clearing.

  Single people are not even expected to clear their

  own plate. In the history of family or friends parties, I have

  never taken my plate or a boyfriends plate. It is scooped up

  quickly, very Sim like, by a wife without her spouse or an

  old lady.

  Could you avoid this forever? Yes I believe you can.

  I believe in a world where you can be any person and decide if you want to clear your plate. You do have options. You can try something no one has ever done. Place the plate on an already growing stack of married lifter’s plates. She will think you were helping, so beware. They may invite you into the kitchen and you will never escape. You will come out hours later with five years sucked out of your life expectancy and you’ll have a wrinkle and know all the horrors of natural childbirth. The plus side is that

  they may have tranquilizers back there.

  You could perform a reverse whammy on them and

  have your boyfriend take your plate, make it a first. But

  then the other men will never let him into the plateless

  male escape group. They will think he’s gay and your

  boyfriend will never go for it. If he is foreign, just tell him it

  is the custom here for men to take their own damn plate in.

  Or you can do the Auntie Mame thing and hire a personal

  sherpa plate lifter guy, or pay a kid 5 dollars. This will be

  seen as stuck up and they will not invite you to the kitchen

  (a plus) but the men may steal your five dollar trick, but

  they will never get away with it because they would be

  forced to use their own kid and never pay up and the kid

  will be on to their game. You can make an old person do it,

  but God will look down on you.

  There are no easy answers. Hire servants.

  Blue Elephants

  America is in a big bubble but you can play small world all day long without ever having to leave its borders. Yes. You can. Last week I was with Domino while she did some scary executive things. Really I went for the Little Meeting Big Lunch thing. After, she had to give a demo to young girls in middle school about glamour. The boys volunteered her because they were too scared. It’s like Courtney Love teaching your kids Sex Ed. Good luck because I was going along for the ride.

  LA was still under the impression of summer; it was a bazillion degrees, which is what I get for living in a colonized desert, but I don’t care what anyone says - I like it. We had crazy people running for governor; I am never leaving now. We headed to an area in Downtown Disney which...is a lot of tourist stores in an outdoor setting with one very very important thing – it’s outdoors. So no air conditioning unless you’re the bubble boy. Downtown Disney did not inform me. If Walt can freeze his head then the very least he can do is air condition Downtown Disney.
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br />   Now there were only a few restaurants but one of them was THE RAINFOREST CAFÉ. Kids were leaving it crying, so that was where I went. It’s like a real Disney environment right in a restaurant. You walk in and you have to speak to the big plastic blue elephant. They actually say from their little headphones "APPROACH THE BLUE ELEPHANT!", and something blasts you with cool air. I bet its Disney cootie disinfectant. I bet Walt had that whole Howard Hughes germ disorder. Never in my life had I wished more that I was on LSD.

  So you approach the blue elephant and THERE ARE PEOPLE IN IT, they are *in* the blue elephant, wearing hats and microphones and I said to Dom "I can’t believe we are here, this is so wrong, do they serve alcohol?" And apparently Walt does think of everything, because there is alcohol.

  All of the sudden the whole restaurant shakes and goes dark and thunder breaks out and lightening flashes and the jungle noises start and the animated animals start moving. And the little kids start crying. I say "AM I HAVING A PANIC ATTACK?" and she says "No it’s supposed to be a rainforest!" which would explain its name. Wow, that is so fucked up. People bring their kids here to scare them; I love this place. Forget you; I am moving into the Rainforest Café.

  And when it is time they call your name and say: "Domino party of two, your adventure awaits you, approach the blue elephant and please await your safari." If you don’t show up they say: Bob, party of 12, Bob Party of 12, your safari has left without you. Yea, screw you Bob, you are not going to be seeing any fake rainforest today.

  While drinking margaritas, we relished the moments when the fake storms came and the lights went out and the kids cried and screamed because life sized animatronic gorillas and elephants were coming to kill them. This is how life should be.

  So here is my review of the Rainforest Café.

  Pros

  • It’s dark

  • Scares the hell out of kids

  • Has alcohol

  • Cute men in safari suits

  • Makes children cry

  • You get to watch children - those scared children cry

  • If your kids are bad, you can go there and sit next to

  the gorillas and watch them cry

  Cons

  • If your kids are good, you take them there as a treat and they still cry.

  • Although the bar is called The Magic Mushroom, they have no mushrooms just like the Opium Den has no opium. False advertising is not my friend.

  • Disney people ride the monorail to this place; it’s fanny pack heaven. Casual clothes are not my friend.

  • Kids are allowed, but without them, you would have no one to laugh at.

  • The alcohol is not strong enough

  • The food has dorky names and you have to repeat them "I’ll have the Monkeylicious Safari Salad on Elephant Ear Bread" you can’t appear sophisticated ordering that, you just can’t. (Can be seen as a pro when your friend has to order it after 100 degree weather and 3 drinks)

  • The humidity of all those goddamned waterfalls and simulated rain frizzed my hair, a big extra F U to the rain forest café, I wasn’t finished shopping yet, and yes, that does ruin my day until my Life

  Straightening Hair Day Comes Thank You Very Much.

  Because we had not mocked the environment enough, we stopped by a World Market store. This is where people can buy 3rd world authentic crafts and, more importantly, chocolate from around the world -- in a gift store setting without having to brave the environment of a third world nation. It’s like Zimbabwe without the flies or India without the beggars. Which is rather how the rainforest café is like the Amazon without the malaria. The world market has tribal music playing in air conditioned quiet. Do people care some kid went blind beading this bowl for 27 days straight for a chunk of goat meat and a nickel? No, it comes with a little note telling you about how much he appreciates your patronage. And there I am thinking what if Nabugu had a contagious disease...is it on my bowl? Could I write him back and be his pen pal?

  Dear Leprosy Kid,

  Thanks for the bowl. Please tell me that leprosy is not contagious or I am taking this back. Here is a nickel extra for your hard work.

  Thanks,

  Love Jenifer.

  P.S. how do you not even blink when flies walk over your eyes?

  I know this is very wrong and I still cry when I watch those feed this kid for 30 cents a day fundraisers, but I have homeless people in my own family. So after we left the rainforest café and got on the freeway, I said "my cousin lives near here." And Dom said "your cousin lives in Orange County?" No, my cousin does not live near the 405 freeway; he lives under it. He is homeless. No one in the family likes to admit this, because you see they are Jehovah Witnesses. They love knocking on total strangers doors and preaching the word of Jehovah, but they don’t seem to mind their brother/son/cousin out there because he is not a JW. An extra special big F U to the JWs for that one. As we were driving back on the 405 with 3rd world chocolate and too much leftovers from the Rainforest Café I was wondering which freeway underpass he lived under and how do you exactly approach someone with no teeth who is your blood relation and say "I am sorry you didn’t take your medication...I am sorry none of us will let you live with us but you steal our things and our medication and you know, when you chase us around the house, it is not really appreciated. Here is a Plant Sandwich and a beaded bowl Nubugu made. Have a nice day."

  Somewhere the world has gone all wacky when you go to a fake rainforest café and come out with enough food to feed the homeless who have no addresses so you can’t even find them. Homeless family members should have microchip tracking devices. Or at the very least a prepaid cell phones or something; we could call him...bring him food. This is a touchy subject and he is my cousin, but without his medication he is basically like being around a Speed Freak Patrick Bateman. So don’t crawl under the 405 freeway between Anaheim and Irvine because I can’t guarantee your safety.

  Then we stopped in Irvine...to go to that middle school. Eagle Run or Brookeside or Lakeside or Sweet Valley, it was some Judy Blume school where I know Deenie lives. Anyway, Domino has to talk to all these kids and she stuck all that makeup in a Black and Decker case. I am just staring at it and she screams "WHAT? This is what Eric bought for the fashion show!" So either she was the electrician or that huge thing was full of glitter. Gay men cannot shop for all things; let that be known now. Eric the drag queen bought the case. Possibly on purpose.

  So here she is explaining to them how to apply makeup and possibly wire a house. She even gave a few kids makeovers, smiling like a spokesmodel whilst lying and telling them they all had one beautiful thing they could play up. like her name was Oprah, and I am thinking ...who is this person? But she is a Gemini and in case anyone has noticed, they have more personalities than Sybil.

  There was this one little girl from band camp, and she wouldn’t shut up. She kept saying "BUT I PLAY THE FLUTE AT BAND CAMP I CAN’T WEAR LIP GLOSS!" and I was waiting for her to say "one time at band camp" but she never did. Dom did their makeup all nice. They didn’t look like when she did my makeup and made me look like Hustler. Then they all wanted to know what shape their eyes were, so Domino went around like some demented Miss MaryAnn and she told each and every one of them their eye shape. She even carried a mirror. She probably thought there was a camera and she was hosting Romper Room. I would have said "Well kids, you have two, work with that unless you have one of those Sandy Duncan eyeballs then I can’t help you!"

  Then she told them about colors and how you could use them to accentuate and make your eye color *pop* out. Who wants their eyes to pop out is beyond me, it sounds painful. And entirely unnecessary to the band girl who had Marty Feldman eyes. So Domino told one her eyes would really pop out if she wore violet. Then she said that to the next one and by the 5th girl I was on to her. She was telling them all to use violet because she was tired. Somewhere in a middle school in Orange County, 25 Junior High girls showed up looking like someone socked them in the eye
. It’s all Domino’s fault.

  The school was 94% white and there was a little girl who had not paid for the class and she wanted a goodie bag and the teacher hissed SHE DIDN’T PAY FOR THE CLASS. I wanted to hiss back "teachers who never wear makeup shouldn’t give glamour classes!" but since I made fun of the 3rd world bowl kid, I gave the little girl all the bags we had left. Okay, so it won’t change the world but at least Lola has lip gloss now. You gotta start somewhere. Charity sweeties, charity.

  And then a kid, with an entire bottle of glitter on her face came up and asked me if was there to put makeup on them too and asked for an autograph...this poor misguided child wanted an autograph from a total stranger in the corner who hadn’t said a word. Please kid, I am not the mystery guest. I don’t give seminars…so I just said to her "Umm...WEAR VIOLET...just try wearing some violet shadow tomorrow!" Yea, and I will be the woman writing about it. So she walked over to Dom and I see her leaning over shaking her head at the kid and then writing something down. The kid wanted her autograph. Hello, don’t you people in Irvine give your kids role models? Your child just asked a total stranger on Xanax and carrying bottled water and wondering if her underwear is showing over the waistband of her trousers for an autograph and actually received one from a woman who is wearing two different colored socks.

  Enter the Facemaster

  I saw this contraption one time before on late night TV. You simply electrocute your face via 2 small jumpers plugged into a battery on the console. People pay money to get the same sensation I got as a child when my sister told me to lick a battery to see if it was still good. The theory is that it tones your face; it works out the muscles beneath the skin and tones them; you never work that part of your body out. Makes sense. I needed one. It was one of those "Heyyyy, I need to dehydrate all our produce!" moments. Where for a moment, you envision all the dried banana chips and beef jerky you could produce from your very own kitchen, like Martha Stewart on speed. Except with this, you run electric shocks into your face. The Spa meets a mini version of The Green Mile.

  But I got distracted by Whiny Nasal Woman on the Home Shopping Network, so I switched the channel before Suzanne could help me purchase something to shock my own face. When I was 20 something, I saw the Thighmaster and got one. It was blue and red and you closed and opened your legs on it. It was like a big spongy pretzel thingee that worked those hard to reach muscles. Yea, you mean the ones that anyone having the right sort of sex does without the aid of a spongy pretzel made in a Suzanne Somers factory. It went into a closet.