Shopping With Grumpy Cat

I do the grocery shopping. My wife hates it, and I actually kind of like it, so that’s my domain. But I have grocery store issues.

More correctly, I have people-in-grocery-store issues.

It’s the woman waddling down the isle with her cell phone attached to her ear that you can’t get past. It’s the person perfectly capable of getting out of their car, walking across the parking lot and into the store, but then plop their rump into a motorized shopping cart. I can’t get past them either.

Just the other day, I waited to get a shopping cart while the guy in front of me spent a half hour wiping down his cart with a Sani-Wipe. You’re not washing your car, man, get out of my way!

I don’t like kids in grocery stores. I don’t blame the kids, I blame you. You are a terrible parent and let them run around like a pack of wild dogs. Or you are a wonderful parent who makes them sit in the cart and keep their hands to themselves, and they cry the whole time. Either way, you should have chained them to the bumper while you shopped.

Check-out is a whole ‘nother issue.

Pick a line. Doesn’t matter. You’re going to be behind that person that needs to pay for the first one hundred items one way, then pay for next one hundred another way. Or the lady with 4,000 coupons. Or the lady that pays with just the right amount of cash. It’ll take her four years to count out 23 cents she needs because it’s mostly pennies. Pennies should be outlawed.

Here’s another favorite: me waiting in line while you argue with the clerk that grapes are supposed to be 30 cents off this week.  The clerk then has to find a newspaper insert so that together you can find the page it’s on so that you can point out to her that you are right and she can point out to you that it’s the green grapes that are 30 cents off, not the red ones.

Bonus points for you if you then want to go back and swap for the ‘on sale’ grapes while I wait.

If you’re in the ‘15 items or less’ line, I’m behind you counting your items. Though I must admit I was recently “that guy.” I’m waiting to check out with an almost full buggy when the cashier at the 15-or-less line motioned me over. She had no one waiting and assured me it was fine.

How long do you think it took for someone to come up to that line with just three items?  If you said, “about 10 seconds”, you’re a winner every time.

Palmetto Bluff: Living Large and Beyond My Means

Palmetto Bluff is a playground for the rich, and occasionally, the famous. Pop singer Kelly Clarkson supposedly was here recently playing golf. 

The 20,000 acre development in Bluffton, South Carolina, oozes Southern charm. With the May River as a backdrop, enormous live oaks drip with Spanish moss. Beautiful homes are tastefully set along well-manicured fairways; paved pathways allow walkers, bicyclists and golf carts to navigate safely separate from traffic. Much of the land is a nature preserve. 

The place smells like money.

My wife and I do not qualify to live in such opulence, but apparently we have friends that do. For the weekend, we pretend we belong.

The occasion is an annual event called ‘Music To Your Mouth’. It is an event that Caligula would have approved of: an orgy of food and drink. (We’ll let the orgy references stop there.)

Noted – and unnoted – chefs gather to show off their skills of preparing Southern fare.  

Beer artisans offer snooty beers. Wineries from the East to West coasts offer unlimited tastes of their best reds and whites. And there is a bacon forest, where bacon – plain, smoked, candied, and drizzled in chocolate – hangs from lines, waiting to be ‘picked’ and eaten.

 Admission is the cost of a year’s tuition at UGA. We took out a loan.  

When it is over, the whole affair has lasted only four hours, but that was enough. Decadent indulgence has its limits.

Another time, for another event, I would tell you that we all went back to the house and passed out for the remainder of the afternoon. But this is Palmetto Bluff. The top drawer. The upper end. 

We napped.

Grits and the People That Eat Them

As Southerns, we enjoy a special infatuation with our food. Especially those that are uniquely our own. Like grits.

For most of time I was on the radio, I co-opted Lewis Grizzard’s line that inferred grits grew on trees. I don’t know if anyone else found it funny, but it never got old for me.

Recently, on a trip through North Carolina, my wife and I wound up at a nice little bed and breakfast. For breakfast, they served very traditional Southern fare: biscuits, gravy, eggs, waffles… and grits. Grits with your choice of redeye gravy or a cream gravy.

Hearing the ‘you’re not from here’ people discover that grits were a part the buffet was a lot of fun. 

“Hey, look at this. He says it’s grits!”

For them, grits was more of an attraction than it was food. One lady took a picture but didn’t eat any, despite my insistence that it was only corn.

I chose cream with mine, only because that’s an option not usually available. I usually eat grits with butter, cheese, salt, pepper, and sometimes bacon or ham. On this day, I decided to be a sophisticate of some sort for no apparent reason. Besides, I was having milk gravy with my biscuits. If I had redeye gravy on my grits, the gravies would be confused. 

I have personal litmus test for the proper way to load up on biscuits and gravy, by the way. If you can still see biscuit, you ain’t got enough gravy! Feel free to co-opt that as your own.

Full disclaimer: I have had triple bypass surgery. 

I do not believe it has anything to do with gravy.

Doing Disney, Part 1

My wife and I have just returned from her first trip to Disney World. If you have never been but have thought about it, in this article we will discu$$ the cost. Hang on to your wallet.

This was not my first trip to Disney, but for quick context on how long it had been, on my last visit I paid $8 to get into the Magic Kingdom. Today, a one-day pass is $105. PER PERSON!! 

Is it worth it? 18 million-plus people a year think so.

I knew I was in trouble when I started researching the trip and discovered there are actually finance plans to help you pay for your Disney vacation. You can even set up a Disney savings account to start putting money aside now to pay for your future visit. You know, sort of the same thing you’re supposed to be doing for retirement.

Further warning signs: the two of us spent $161.52 on dinner the very first night there. I blame me. I insisted on a bottle of wine and not wanting to appear to the Disney staff to be the Two Buck Chuck-er I am, I opted not to get the cheapest wine on the menu. No, that would have been the $49 bottle of… swill, probably.

I ordered the $51 bottle.

I’m sure the staff was impressed. I suspect they talked about it in the kitchen. “Hey the guy at table 27, he’s really upping his game tonight!” They may have also discussed that we asked for a red wine to go with the fish we ordered, but for the record, I do not drink white wine. Unless, of course, that’s all you have. 

My snootiness has its limitations.

Disney is expensive. But here’s the brilliance of it all. You don’t need money! You don’t. For visitors to a Disney resort, you get a wrist band, and that cute Mickey-eared bracelet takes care of everything.

Tap your wrist band to your door, that’s your room key. Want a drink? Tap your band to the machine and out comes a $3 Coke. A beer, you say? Tap. Entrance to the parks, your entry on the rides, meals, snacks, hats, shirts, pins… anything and everything can be bought with just a tap.

Oh, sure, that wrist band is tied to some personal information like, say, a credit card you’ve put on file. But at no time do you ever have to pull out cash or a card. Spending has never been so easy. 

It’s genius on a level Walt Disney himself would be proud of.

I must admit, I do think it was worth the money. We had a great time! But yeah, that mouse got away with a little bit more than just my cheese.

The Alcohol Prescription

A long-time listener from the time I spent on the radio emailed recently. “I’ve got something for you,” she wrote.

I know her just well enough to know we share a similar sense of humor, so we set up a meeting: Wednesday, 1 p.m. in the beer and wine aisle at a local grocery store. (Why not do some meaningful shopping while you wait, eh?)

What she had for me was a prescription for alcohol. I had no idea such a thing existed. Dated 1927, that would place this artifact squarely in the middle of the prohibition era for the United States, a time when alcohol became mostly illegal.

Best I can tell from my twenty seconds of research, the government did allow for alcohol – mostly whiskey and brandy – to be distilled for pharmaceutical use during prohibition, starting in 1920. Cancer, indigestion, depression… it apparently was the fix for numerous ailments.

This particular prescription called for one tablespoon three times a day. Pardon me for saying so, but that amount would be just about enough to pi** off a real drinking man. (I’m guessing.)

It did, however, start me wondering about the creative ways one might have obtained such a prescription back then.

“Doc, my Model T’s done throwed a wheel, so looks like I’ll be walking to work. Can you give me something for my sore feet?”

“Doc, my girl’s done hauled off and joined one of them travelin’ hoochie-coochie shows. Can you give me something to ease the shame?”

“Doctor, my best layin’ hen ain’t puttin’ out eggs no more. What am I gonna do?”

“You’re gonna get you another hen”, says the doctor. “Meantime, take this three times a day.”

Historians seem to generally agree that prescription alcohol was a racket. You paid your doctor for the prescription then you paid the pharmacist for the elixir. The doctors and druggists were getting rich; you were getting your buzz on.  Everyone was happy, I suppose.

I wouldn’t be. And here’s why:

A tablespoon is half a fluid ounce.  Therefore, three tablespoons would be an ounce and a half. A standard jigger is an ounce and a half. A jigger is also known as a shot glass. Conclusion: the doctor was prescribing a shot a day that you would basically divide into three sips.

One. Shot.

If my doctor prescribed that for me, I’d take it. But then I’d fling the shot glass at his head. Let’s see if one shot is enough for his pain.

I'm a Cowboy

That’s right.  I’m a cowboy.  Got me some chip-kickers (sorry, they allow me only so much editorial freedom) to prove it. Tony Lamas, baby.

A friend gave me these nice cowboy boots over twenty-five years ago, and until recently, I had worn them maybe twice. I’m a sneaker dude. What I am is a lazy dresser, but sneakers are the preferred shoe of slobs worldwide.

A wedding I attended back in the fall was loosely Western themed, so putting the boots on seemed the appropriate thing to do. Problem is, those boots are size 11; my foot is now a 12. It was a tight fit, but my wife encouraged me to gut it out for the night.  After all, I’m a cowboy, right? We laugh at pain.

Wearing those boots for 8 hours that day either stretched them out a bit or shrunk my foot. The boots still don’t fit but feel fine enough that I recently wore them when I accompanied my wife to a dinner with a bunch of her redneck friends. 

I fit right in.

Here’s the thing: I’m different when I’m wearing my boots. Maybe I just don’t pay attention, but do I always point my toes out when I walk? In my boots I feel like I’m bow-legged. Like I just got off a horse.

I talk differently, too. Instead of a “nah” to your question, you will get “naw”. “Hey” becomes “howdy” as I greet you. Being raised in the South, I tend to say “ma’am” to women most of the time, regardless of their age, but when I’m wearing boots, it becomes a two-syllable word: ‘may-yum’.

The very act of wearing cowboy boots invokes a certain swagger in your personality that you don’t normally display. It’s how we get popular 5-foot, 2-inch country singers. They may be wearing a t-shirt and a necklace, but put on them boots, a cowboy hat, and give ‘em a git-tar, and they are by-god ranch hands that just drove the herd across Montana right before hopping on stage to sang you this here song.

I get it. ‘Cause I too am a cowboy. So if you see me in the saloon, go ahead, call me out for being an imposter. But be aware, I’ve got a six-shooter. I mean, I’ve had six shooters.

And if you’re wearing flip-flops, I’ll trade you. These boots are killin’ my feet.

Real Man Food!

It’s no great revelation that our tastes change as we, uh… mature.

Think about the first wine you drank. Pink right? Or peach or strawberry or whatever Boone’s Farm blend you could get your hand on. 

White zinfandel, which is pink, is still popular with novices. In fairness to white zin, it’s still popular with girls and gay guys, too. No offense intended; I have girl friends and gay guy friends. I know what they like.

My own wine experience started with sauterne, which is a dessert wine. I recall drinking it over pizza with a girlfriend. It’s really sweet and a terrible choice with pizza, but it’s where your taste buds are. Or were.  

These days, I prefer syrahs, zins (not white), and cabernets: rich, hardy, almost heavy wines with lots of big tannins and a warm alcohol feel.

Coffee is another good example of changing tastes. It’s pretty common to start drinking it with lots of milk and sugar which, except for it being hot, makes it more like a coffee milk shake. I’m a late-in-life coffee drinker, but I only want it one way: black and strong.

Chocolate: I will eat creamy milk chocolate if you offer it, but I would marry a Hershey’s Special Dark bar if the law allowed and it could say “I do”.

Syrup: Aunt Jemima is for sissies. Give me a buttered biscuit and some blackstrap molasses - or sorghum, and get out of my way!

Anchovies: Like most folks, I grew up thinking they were yucky. Now, I routinely use anchovy paste in certain dishes. Sardines? Nothing but big anchovies. Open a can and let’s eat.

Spices and herbs: more, more, more! Pepper, cumin, and cilantro. Garlic could duke it out with dark chocolate for my deepest affections.

But you see the trend, yes?  Bigger, bolder, richer... words already used.  Here’s another word that applies: stinkier.  I want my cheese to stink. Bleu, gorgonzola… give me any cheese with mold in it. That seems odd to even say.

But ‘stinky’ seems like a good place to stop and begin to address the elephant in the room. And that is how all of this affects us. More importantly, how it affects the people around us. Or we could just ignore it. 

Either way, COULD SOMEBODY PLEASE OPEN A WINDOW AND GET SOME FRESH AIR IN HERE!?!?