Author: Susan Wilson

Categories
Opinion The Last Word

Going Postal on Mendenhall

CREDIT: Erica Schroeder | Dreamstime.com

I had to go to not one, but two post offices.

See, I wasn’t wearing pants, and I was on the phone with my bank. I couldn’t get to the door in time and didn’t get my package. My lovely postman rang several times because he’s obviously been there before and knows I’m often wiping Nutella off my face before I answer the door.

Now, my friend Desi was a bit stumped at this, because don’t all Southern ladies have bathrobes? Well, yeah, I reckon. But that never occurred to me, honestly. Probably because my bank was calling to verify two very legitimate charges, which I appreciated since last year I had THREE different debit cards due to security breaches.

Note to self, find another bank.

Anyway, I was so stunned that they were actually monitoring that all I could do was kind of freeze in place, my phone in one hand, watching my precious cargo being loaded back up and taken away.

Taken away to the depths of the Mendenhall Post Office. Where it could not be found. That should have been a sign, BUT OH NO! Did I heed said sign? No, for I am an idiot of the highest caliber. For various reasons, I needed a mailbox. So I’d gotten one online at a post office location that I preferred. I printed out everything the site told me, got all my IDs (strangely, no one accepts one’s belly button as proof of birth), and trekked onward. BIG mistake. Let me just cut to the chase. By the time I got back in my car, I had no post office box, and I was in tears.

Erica Schroeder | Dreamstime.com

This is why EVERYTHING at the post office should be done by machines. Machines do not tell you things like they do not have to do what the website says. Machines do not tell you, “Y’all just don’t know. Y’all don’t know how to fill out a form. Y’all can’t come in here with stuff ain’t doing you no good.”

This woman was the most heinous individual I have ever encountered, and I once got stuck in a KKK rally in Brandon, Mississippi. Truth. So I went and finished my errands, got home, canceled my mailbox online, and wrote a complaint that was pointed yet poignant. I know USPS doesn’t care.  I know nothing will be said to this woman, and even if it were, it wouldn’t matter. Some people are just toxic.

A smooth transaction can change a person’s day. You can be having the worst day ever. Run in your hose. There’s a black fly in your chardonnay. But one joke from the woman at Fred’s about how those select-a-size towels probably have a Napoleon complex, and it looks a lot better.

A terrible transaction can change a person’s day. You can be having the best day ever. You don’t have to wear pants. Black Sabbath decide to play your favorite neighborhood bar. Someone gives you something besides chardonnay. But one “I don’t have to do ANYTHING the website says,” and you are suspended between hopelessness and rage to the extent you clutch your pearls, say screw everything, go to Taco Bell, and go home and binge on Netflix and remorse the rest of the day. Because …

PEOPLE SUCK.

I know there isn’t anything nearly as trite as complaining about a government agency, but clichés are clichés because they’ve happened enough to be cliché. People with absolutely no power anywhere else in life will always try to create a superpower at work. When there are no consequences for actions, people do what we do. We act like jerks. I did cancel my order, I did write a complaint, and I know that nothing will change because I am the only one in this situation who was inconvenienced. No one else has a stake. It’s the post office, where else am I going to go? What the woman wanted, she got. She wanted to tell someone no. She wanted to know — or act as if she knew — more than someone else because she has absolutely no power. People who throw fits and fall in them are no different from a toddler. And when we do that, we’re telling the other person, “YOU are responsible for my behavior,” rather than taking responsibility ourselves. Unfortunately, this woman exercised her “No” power with me. I don’t show emotion with this kind of deal. I don’t get loud. In fact, I get like Alec Baldwin quiet. I speak very distinctly. I ask how we’re going to fix this. Most of the time, it works, and we all move on. This time? Not so much. Not only did we not fix the problem, she didn’t get to see me get upset. So we both lost.

Susan Wilson also writes for yeahandanotherthing.com and likethedew.com. She and her husband, Chuck, have lived here long enough to know that Midtown does not start at Highland.

Categories
Opinion The Last Word

My Dog Is So Bright …

If I get fired from my day job, it will be because I was looking up “dog sunglasses” on my computer. I’ve looked at our electronic devices usage policy, and I didn’t see anything specifically prohibiting using my lunch break to find my poodle some eye protection, but you know how corporations are. Picky, picky, picky.

Now that I think about it, it might be because I always forget the company blocks access to Pandora. I don’t know why I can’t remember that. I like a little music in my office, and, as much as I love public radio, sometimes I need music with words. So I try to pull up Pandora and get this red and black warning that I am perilously close to the third rail of internet surfing and if I do it again, corporate minions will show up at my office to haul me out. I think about this when I remember I can’t stream my big band station. Oh, sure. I could listen to Benny Goodman on YouTube. YouTube isn’t blocked. Go figure that one out, and let me know what you come up with.

Sometimes I daydream that on the 13th time I forget that site is blocked, air raid sirens will start screaming, and men in tactical gear wielding frothing German Shepherds and Tasers will show up at my office. Then I’ll be put in a small room with nothing but a metal table and two chairs and a one-way mirror.

Interesting tidbit. When writing that last sentence, I couldn’t remember if I meant a “one-way mirror” or “two-way mirror.” Turns out THEY ARE THE SAME THING. It’s like flammable and inflammable meaning the same thing. I don’t understand the need to make English our official language. I’m a native speaker, and it makes me drink. When all native speakers can explain why one-way and two-way mean the same thing, we can discuss a national language.

Now that I think about it, it might not be the dog sunglasses (I went with the bright yellow, by the way). It might be how the other day I called everyone into my office to see the video of a rooster wearing turquoise pants running around the chicken yard. That’s right. The rooster was wearing pants. Bright turquoise pants. I had no idea how much my life needed a video of a rooster in britches. Just trust me. You need that rooster in your life, too.

Ebay is also blocked on our corporate network. Amazon is not. Maybe that one was a “pick your battles” decision. We are not prohibited from looking up the score from last night’s game, but we are prohibited from clicking any links to any sites discussing said game. My job requires me to be familiar with approximately 16,923 government ordinances, requirements, and statutes. I am not blocked from any government website, but I did try to order an informational poster from the one.gov website and was kindly reminded if I tried that crap again, the Stormtroopers would show up with thumbscrews and a pink slip. One becomes unsure how one is to comply with statutes requiring the posting of certain information if one cannot obtain the method of delivery for said required information. Working for corporations is often like unknowingly starring in a Samuel Beckett play.

Americans don’t take vacations. We spend our weekends checking our work email accounts. But I keep reading about how much time we waste at work on the internet. Doesn’t it all wash? I lose my vacation every year, but spend 20 minutes a day clearing my brain by looking at dog-shaming websites and trying to find a really good casserole recipe. I’m not saying I’m owed it. I’m saying six of one, half dozen of the other. Like how there’s only so much T-ball an adult can possibly be expected to endure, so taking a call from work is a welcome respite from watching your kid miss a stationary ball literally two feet away for the 394th time in a row. Work/life balance has gone electronic.

My company gives its employees a little elasticity, but I know people who have been fired for checking March Madness scores and downloading pictures of Land Between the Lakes for a child’s school project. I know a rule is a rule, but c’mon. Not being able to check March Madness scores might possibly be classified as cruel and unusual punishment by the Geneva (Kansas) Convention.

I know you have one burning question: How did my dog like the sunglasses? Not as well as I’d hoped. He likes wearing mine, so I thought he’d love a pair of his own. As it turns out, I think he just likes being a diva in my oversized Jackie O. tortoise shells. He does look fabulous.

Susan Wilson writes for yeahandanotherthing.com and likethedew.com. She and her husband Chuck have lived here long enough to know that Midtown does not start at Highland.

Categories
Opinion The Last Word

What Not to Wear

CREDIT: Laurence Agron | Dreamstime.com

Let’s accept that I ended up on Oprah’s website. That’s as much as I’m willing to admit. Along with articles like “7 Dresses That Give You a Flat Stomach,” “12 Non-Dorky Backpacks for Grown-Ups,” and “Oprah’s Shoe Hall of Fame,” is an article called “What Not to Wear If You’re Over a Certain Age.”

Here’s the thing. It is not the job of Oprah or her minions to tell me what not to wear. That job belongs to the people. It belongs to all women who have sat with their girlfriends and done some serious people-watching over margaritas. It belongs to every woman who has ever said to a friend, “Oh, girl. No.”

Now, to be fair, I would not have dismissed this particular listicle out of hand had it actually been Oprah standing atop a mountain with seven edicts chiseled into perfectly veined Italian marble, telling me not to wear bright nail polish. It was, however, a minion of Oprah’s named Adam Glassman.

Laurence Agron | Dreamstime.com

I’m guessing this Glassman is a fellow. I mean, I’m from Mississippi where we routinely name girls family names like Morgan, Aubrey, Curtis, and Blake; but I don’t know a single woman named Adam. So, this … dude … this Adam, is gonna tell me what I shouldn’t wear? No. Because I am fair and balanced like Fox, I will agree that his mention of rompers is spot on. But that should be more of a general rule. Rompers are ridiculous. First, for gals who run a little long in the stride, they seem awfully uncomfortable. Also? I’m not going to go into the logistics required for a restroom visit. No one who is old enough to cut her own food should wear a romper.

We ladies of a certain age shouldn’t wear short skirts, bright nail polish, bare midriffs, and a few other things that are even dumber. Granted, this list wasn’t quite as knuckleheaded as the one I read saying we shouldn’t wear hoop earrings, graphic T-shirts, or colored denim. I’ve decided that since any moron can make a list of don’ts for us more world-weary ladies, I’d throw mine into the ring.

I give you my list of things not to wear if you’re old enough to have voted for a male Clinton.

1. An Upper Lip Tattoo. Listen, I know you still want to be hip and fresh. But tattooing “YOLO” on your upper lip is just going to draw attention to those bothersome little lines you got after years of sucking Marlboro Lights. If you must get your upper lip tattooed, might I suggest a Hitler mustache? This way, you have a built-in Halloween costume, and you don’t have to worry about plucking those pesky hairs we get from time to time.

2. Camouflage Contact Lenses. Too faddish. Might I suggest a timeless animal print?

3. French Manicured Eyebrows. I am so over the French manicure. Long rectangle fake nails with stripes on the tips more suited to a parking lot is not a good look for anyone. Why would you do that to your eyebrows? That’s a young girl’s game.

4. Clear Plastic Shoes With Goldfish in the Platform. Oh, sure. It sounds like a good idea, but what if you want the rest of your accessories that day to be silver? Let the kids mix their metals. Ladies of a certain age should be more consistent.

5. Sneakers with Light-Up Soles. I know. Your granddaughter looks adorable in them. Stick to a nice Ferragamo pump, granny.

6. Drop-Waisted, Puffy-Sleeved Chintz Dresses. Do not—I REPEAT—do not try to relive the glory days of the early ’80s by wearing a dress made of fabric from the upholstery section of Jo-Ann’s. If you must relive your youth, go see Journey at the casino. If you’re old enough to have worn it the first time, you’re too old to wear it the second.

7. Festival Clothes. Please, stay away from anything marketed as perfect for festival season. This includes, but is not limited to, feathered headdresses, knee-high gladiator sandals, triangle chain bras, metallic temporary tattoos, or lace-up hotpants. Again, this is more a good rule of thumb for anyone, not just moms of teenagers.

8. Pet Clothing. I cannot emphasize enough that no matter how cute that little “Princess” T-shirt you got for your maltipoo is, it is NOT CUTE FOR YOU.

9. Surgical Directions. I know how cute your daughter looked after she came out of her ACL surgery with her left knee marked “NOT THIS KNEE,” but it loses something when you try to make “NOT THIS HIP” happen.

10. Fiber Optic Evening Gowns. I don’t care how great they look on My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding, all that light from below is not going to do a thing to help that waddle.

Susan Wilson writes for yeahandanotherthing.com and likethedew.com. She and her husband Chuck have lived here long enough to know that Midtown does not start at Highland.

Categories
Opinion The Last Word

Mayonnaise Some Good ’Maters!

You may find that I talk a lot about how summer sucks. This summer is particularly nasty. I am, however, going to say something nice about summer. Tomatoes. Tomatoes are nice. A bacon and tomato sandwich is the first thing you get in heaven. And, because it’s heaven, you get to pick what kind of mayonnaise you want. Red and yellow, black and white, there is no more of a great divide among Southern friends and family than what kind of mayonnaise you prefer.

Now, I’m talking about mayonnaise in terms of “preference” and not “orientation” because some people are omni-mayonnaisians. I am one of those people. I am open to trying a new mayonnaise. You may be reading this now thinking, no. I can’t go on with this. I can’t read someone who has no firm mayo preference. It’s against nature. Right now you want to find me and bring me over to your side. You want me to understand why Duke’s is the Way. That Blue Plate is the Light. I hope that we can at least all agree that Greek yogurt has no place in mayonnaise.

A couple of weeks ago a friend posted an article on Facebook about pears with cheese and mayonnaise. This delicacy consists of a half a canned pear, a dollop of mayonnaise placed in the hollow, and is sprinkled with mild cheddar cheese. If your family was very rich and fancy, you might have gotten a maraschino cherry on top. Those of you who can’t abide the thought of mayonnaise in the first place are trying to keep lunch down at this point. I get it. It doesn’t sound particularly appetizing. Another friend said she remembered pear salad being served with pizza at our elementary school and she still shudders thinking about it. The article said the trick to recreating the proper pear and cheese salad was to use Kraft mayonnaise. Kraft, the article says, has the correct tang for this particular application.

Right now some of you are going to have to take a blood pressure pill because the thought of using Kraft is so abhorrent.

Duke’s, I am told, is best for tomato sandwiches. I’ve tried Duke’s before and don’t remember liking it, but I am willing to try again. It seems no brand of mayonnaise has as rabid a loyal fan base as Duke’s. It is rumored that ex-pat Southerners will smuggle jars of Duke’s over the Mason-Dixon Line. I am also told that Duke’s is best for the most-hated sandwich my brother and I were ever forced to eat by our grandmother: peanut butter and mayonnaise. I believe the origin of this abomination to be in the Great Depression. Our grandmother would say it made the peanut butter go farther. It went farther away from our mouths. I know there are many fervent peanut butter and mayonnaise sandwich eaters out there, and I will just let you fight your own death match on the proper mayonnaise because I don’t want to think about it anymore.

Some of you reading this might be fans of the second-most disgusting mayonnaise application: mayonnaise and black eyed peas. Why this is a thing, I’ve no idea. I don’t know what the poor humble black eye ever did to warrant such torture as mayonnaise boarding.

I have come to like Blue Plate. It’s cheaper than Hellman’s and it also just uses the yolk of the egg rather than the whole egg, which makes it more like homemade. That’s the only way it’s like homemade. There just is no comparing homemade mayo with store-bought. Pimento cheese made with homemade mayonnaise is a transformative experience, especially when served on pasty white bread. Finely chopped green onion mixed with homemade mayonnaise also makes a good sandwich to serve at bridge club because it goes well with whiskey sours.

I’ve known couples to break up because they found out the other person was a Miracle Whip fan. I’m all about diversity, but I have to say I’m not sure that wasn’t for the best. I don’t know how a mayonnaise-eater can cohabitate with a salad dressing fan. Would you expect an Auburn fan to be happy with an Alabama fan? Same difference.

Why are we so passionate about our mayonnaise brand? Perhaps it’s because, with the exception of Kraft, mayonnaise is very regional. Yes, Hellman’s and Best Foods are the same, but you can’t get Hellman’s west of the Rockies. Blue Plate is elusive, so you best buy a few quarts when you see it. Duke’s is a whole other animal. I grew up in Mississippi and never heard of Duke’s until I was an adult. It also occurs to me that I’ve never noticed generic mayonnaise. I assume it exists. Maybe they eat it in Wyoming?

Susan Wilson writes for yeahandanotherthing.com and likethedew.com. She and her husband Chuck have lived here long enough to know that Midtown does not start at Highland.

Categories
Opinion The Last Word

Summer in the South is No Damn Good

CREDIT: Reuters | Michael Dalder

I hate summer. Summer wears denim cutoffs and tube socks. Summer starts every sentence with, “‘At ol’ boy …” or “Hold my beer.” I don’t so much like spring either — too optimistic. But then I see Memphis in bloom, and I feel really bad about dissing spring. But then my sinuses clog like toilets in a frat house and stay that way until October. Summer requires me to take massive infusions of gin and tonics with lots of lime. For the malaria and the scurvy, don’t you know.

I think I’m supposed to be romantic about summer because I’m Southern. I’m supposed to wax philosophical on the perfect tomato, give advice on the best way to shuck corn, and sweat like I’m in a movie adaptation of a John Grisham novel.

I grew up in Jones County, Mississippi, which is basically a swamp full of pine trees and bugs big enough to have FAA registration numbers on their wings. There is nothing romantic about driving from Memphis to Destin in June and murdering approximately 18,493,673 love bugs with the grill of your Suburban. There is nothing romantic about getting stuck to your vinyl bucket seat when you’re trying to get in to Cash Saver and cool off by sticking your head in the growler station. There is nothing romantic about stepping in what you think is a mud puddle, but turns out your dog’s feces has just liquefied.

Summer is the Donald Trump of seasons.

Reuters | Michael Dalder

Surviving summer

My friends up North tell me I won’t complain about 96° and 500% humidity before noon once I have spent a winter in [insert Midwestern state here]. Oh. Yes. I. Will.

One of the characters in The Fault in Our Stars says something about how the existence of broccoli in no way affects the taste of chocolate. That’s how I feel about weather comparisons. I will give them that it is easier to navigate asphalt that becomes melted than the snow that might melt upon it. But do you not get that quilted coats, hats, and scarves hide a multitude of sins? Also, it is always socially acceptable to put more clothes on, but generally frowned upon to take them off.

When Southern people of my generation and older start talking about summer, it’s about catching fireflies or lightning bugs. I’m not sure what the regional differences are as far as who calls them what. I think it might have less to do with region and maybe more to do with whether you sit on the Gospel or Epistle side of the sanctuary. I never had much luck catching fireflies (I sit in the balcony, by the way), which was fine by my mother because it meant I ruined fewer mayonnaise jar tops. Everyone knows glass mayonnaise jars are the Tupperware of the South, and you never have enough of them. Especially now that Satan has decided to make them plastic. You can’t pour up hot bacon drippings in a plastic Blue Plate jar!

But I digress. It also meant fewer impaled body parts due to poking holes in the tops with an ice pick. Not that our mothers would have stopped what they were doing. My husband once, while practicing an adolescent redneck version of zip-lining in his backyard, impaled himself on a tree (Truth. He has a scar on the side of his chest that pairs up with one on the inside of his arm where the branch ran through). Once he severed himself from his arboreal sword, his mother told him to wash his face and put on a shirt that wasn’t torn because they had to leave in 10 minutes to go to his grandfather’s and she was NOT having any of this foolishness like broken ribs or permanent nerve damage. Ah, the good old days!

What I do remember about summer growing up is that there was generally a thunderstorm in the afternoons. We don’t really have those anymore. Inevitably, we would all be hauled out of the pool by teenage lifeguards drunk with power because a little storm would come up. We’d be back in the pool in just a few minutes, where we would watch the steam rising from the concrete and feel no relief in the water because it was just as wet out of the water. Of course, now the storm would come just as we’re all trying to run into Kroger or Buster’s on the way home, and it would just be a pain in the rump. Thanks, climate change!

Summer has many glories: watermelons, peaches, passing off wearing your bathing suit under clothes by saying you’re going to the pool later when you really just haven’t done laundry. But it will always be the season that starts its sentences with, “Hey, y’all! Watch this!”

Susan Wilson also writes for yeahandanotherthing.com and likethedew.com. She and her husband Chuck have lived here long enough to know that Midtown does not start at Highland.

Categories
Opinion The Last Word

You Can’t Gift Me; I’m Already Gifted.

There’s an episode of 30 Rock where Jack talks about how his product integration sets a new standard in upward revenue-stream dynamics. It’s word salad, but yet somehow you get the drift, don’t you? It’s a saddle of charred corporate buzzword garnished with a foam of pretentiousness and a coulis of self-importance. We all know someone who talks like this. Usually it’s someone who makes a big deal of telling you he went to the Wharton School and that he works hard to play hard. He’s also been known to pound a few Bud Heavies because he is That Guy. He’s Buzzword Guy.

Every few years, I like to take stock of some of the stupidest corporate buzzwords. Wait. I say that like there are some buzzwords that aren’t stupid. Ahem. Every few years I like to sit back and make fun of some of the stupidest of the stupid buzzwords out there. I try not to do it any more than that because then all this column would become is me ranting about why you can’t just call someone. Why do you have to “reach out”? Are you a member of the Four Tops? Doubtful. My husband already hears me complain about people “gifting” each other, and I don’t think he wants to read about it too.

Alec Baldwin, 30 Rock’s Jack

One of my several side gigs is as a researcher. I get a lot of really interesting questions, but I’ve noticed recently I’ve gotten a lot of questions involving “industry disruption.” What are disruptive trends in software as a service? Who are the top merchant services aggregator disrupters? How is the pet industry being disrupted?

I want to start every answer with, dude. First? Just because you have some innovation or some startup with a stupid name doesn’t mean you’re disruptive. Or, wait, maybe it does because I’m not entirely sure what it means to be disruptive anymore. I thought it meant an innovation that changes an industry. Netflix was a disrupter to the video-rental industry even though it wasn’t immediately successful. Now it’s being used for any new rowdy startup wanting to change the game. Uber isn’t disrupting the taxi industry, according to Clayton Christensen, who coined “disruption” in 1995, and he’s a mite pissed off that you youngsters are corrupting his buzzword. Get off his lawn!

I’ve been gnashing my teeth over “ecosystem” applied to business for a few years. It replaced “global,” I think. A company can have an ecosystem when it comes to culture, but Apple has an ecosystem when it comes to devices. If you ask me to “circle back,” I will. But only long enough to pop your jaw. Are you a “wantrepreneur” interested in amplifying insight-as-a-service or “recrutainment”? Well, then you totally need OTTS (over the top service) because you have to look at your ROR (return on relationship) to really max your influencer marketing.

Normal people do this crap too. It isn’t just media mavens. I was talking to my very dear friend of 30 years about underwear. I bought TEN NEW PAIRS OF DRAWERS ALL AT ONCE! I was so excited. I mean, I’m in my 40s, so I’ve already been through the excitement of discovering a new band or finding out you won’t need antibiotics for that thing. New underwear is a Very. Big. Deal. So I said to her, why is it we ever thought getting underwear was the worst gift ever? It’s awesome! And she, lovely woman she is, replied with, “Who gifted you underwear?”

We were on the phone, so she couldn’t see the look I was giving her, but she heard it. Oh, she heard it. She knows how I feel about being gifted. Being gifted means you can play a piece of music after hearing it only one time or that you can do long division in your head without using your fingers. Gifting makes it all about you. It takes the giver out of the equation. Plus it just sounds stupid.

Mommy bloggers in Utah are always talking about being gifted. They’re usually gifted an old chair and some PVC pipe that they turn into a 16-piece “Anthro knockoff” dinner set. I’m not sure what it is ladies in Utah see in Anthropologie that the rest of the country doesn’t. I mean, here in Tennessee, we love a good wacky Anthropologie cardboard deer head as much as they do in Atlanta, but dang. Utah lady bloggers devote entire websites to knocking off the “Anthro look.” But I digress.

Core competency, swim lane, buy-in, deep dive, downstream, and what I might hate even more than disruption: biased algorithms. Incentivize your team! Future-proof your alpha deployment! Grow your playing field organically! Want to dialog your consumer space? Do it without me, because I have no idea what that means.

Susan Wilson writes for yeahandanotherthing.com and likethedew.com. She and her husband Chuck have lived here long enough to know that Midtown does not start at Highland.

Categories
Opinion The Last Word

In Search of True Grits

CREDIT: Bhofack2 | Dreamstime.com

My friend Desi is a Southerner stuck in Chicago for 20 years now. He pines for, well, pines. Specifically the piney woods of Mississippi where we grew up. I periodically remind him about humidity, the fact that the bugs are going to be big enough this summer to saddle and ride to work, and that our legislators are more interested in our bathroom habits than paved roads.

I’m not trying to talk him out of it; I’m being realistic. After 20 years the memories of home are more of the misty, water-colored variety. CRAWFISH! SPIDER LILIES! SCREEN DOORS! But I would love for him to move to Memphis so I’d have an opportunity to make him some shrimp and grits. Mine are outstanding.

Bhofack2 | Dreamstime.com

Shrimp and grits

There is a chicken recipe which has been printed and reprinted and shared a million times. It’s called Engagement Chicken, and it first appeared in Glamour magazine about 30 years ago. Supposedly your boyfriend will propose to you after eating this chicken. I’ve not made this particular chicken, but I’ve made roast chicken with lemon. That’s what this is.

I don’t want to say bad things about this chicken, but I generally eschew any item of food, clothing, or scent that purports to be a marriage trap. It is my foolish belief that marriage is a sacred institution into which both parties should be scared witless to commit themselves. Having said that, I’m aware my husband and I are married because of my shrimp and grits.

We courted each other by fixing dinner. Fast forward a few years, and Chuck’s birthday was approaching. He wanted shrimp and grits. I did not have my own recipe, but I knew there was only one place to go: Oxford. I used John Currence’s recipe as my base. I changed it up a little, but my deepest held conviction about shrimp and grits is that the closest a tomato should get to it is in the salad you serve on the side. Yada yada yada, we were married four months later.

I don’t tell that story so that desperate young women will sear millions of pounds of shrimp in an attempt to walk down the aisle via an unsuspecting stomach. No, I tell this story because I like to take every opportunity I can to brag about my shrimp and grits and because Desi sent me a recipe for a dish which uses — siddown, this is big — instant grits. I KNOW! I clutched my pearls, too.

Listen, I’m not going to lie. I’m down with the quick-cooking grits even though, honestly, no kind of grits takes that long to make. But instant? ARE WE ANIMALS? I looked at the comments about this dish expecting to hear a chorus of disdain for instant grits, and there was some of that. But the singers hitting the back of the house were doing so with an old-fashioned grits bashing.

Gross! Grits are disgusting! Shrimp with grits?! To you grits-bashers out there I say, shuddup. Do you eat polenta? Of course you do. Polenta is faincy. A fancy name for grits. It’s all corn mush!

So those — ugh! — tubes of polenta you get in the produce section and take home to be all international? Why? You wouldn’t buy a pre-made tube of oatmeal would you? It’s all mush like every farmer has eaten for centuries in this country, Europe, Africa, and I could go on.

This is humble food we’re talking about. The great thing about it is that you can dress it up with vegetables, or cheese, or lots of cheese, or cheese and lots of garlic. And you can, I suppose, eat it with cream and sugar, but I don’t know why you’d want to. If you are so inclined as I was, make what the cooking magazine referred to as braised short ribs and root vegetables on a bed of Stilton polenta and garnished with gremolata, but I knew was just pot roast with cheese grits and garnished with lemon zest and parsley.

Maybe the problem isn’t the grits themselves; it’s food with such working-class ties. Eating hand-cut buttermilk scones with Vermont cheddar pimento cheese and house-cured ham is a whole different experience than serving cathead biscuits with your mama’s pimento cheese and country ham. One is not better than the other. You may be more comfortable eating catfish goujons with capered aioli and black-eyed pea caviar, but it’s still fried catfish with tartar sauce and black-eyed pea salad.

Do you really want to associate with people who are so filled with first-world ennui they can’t enjoy a damn bowl of grits? Such people should be thumped soundly and percussively upon the gourd.

Besides, as Desi reminded me, “Telling someone to ‘kiss my polenta’ just doesn’t have the same effect.”

Susan Wilson writes for yeahandanotherthing.com and likethedew.com. She and her husband Chuck have lived here long enough to know that Midtown does not start at Highland.

Categories
Opinion The Last Word

Rats’ Asses and Other Issues

CREDIT: Chris Bence | Dreamstime.com

Chard, Proton, Toile, and Glacier are my four adorable little rascals. Four kids in five years was tough, but thankfully our surrogate was chosen specifically for her impeccable breeding hips. We spend most weekends volunteering for the rights of vegan aardvarks and decorating Cheerios to look like tiny donuts which we then give out to the nice ladies on Lamar Avenue. You should see their looks of wonder when little Toile hands them a matchbox full of tiny chocolate “donuts” with sprinkles! My darling husband Digby Ingerham Tinsley Throckmorton III (yup, we call him Ditty!!) and I spend all our time with them when Ditty isn’t working at his job as Chief Experience Officer for a company that provides ethically sourced glass jars for the craft pickling industry called Dilligent Sourcing (“Innovations With Relish!”). We’re in the process of building a LEED Platinum-Certified luxury yurt in the hopping Binghampton area, but we’re having problems finding an architect who really understands our need for an eight-bedroom yurt and who won’t argue that I don’t actually know what a yurt is.

Chris Bence | Dreamstime.com

I’m kidding. I just spent 10 minutes finding and printing out “doggie pinups” for our dog Grumbledore’s man cave and writing Planter’s to beg them to bring back those cheese puffs they used to make that came in a canister. Those things were like crunchy unicorn dreams. Our kids are out of the house, too. That’s great because now we can turn on the Barry White and turn down the lights whenever we want. And by that I mean we fall asleep by 10 while watching Ally McBeal on DVD.

I’m coming to that age where I am getting low on rats’ asses to give. My grandmother used to say she only wore makeup because other people had to look at her; and if anyone ever broke into the house at night, they’d get what they deserve. I feel the same way. I once had a pizza delivery guy tell me he could never eat pizza when he had the flu and reminded me to stay hydrated. I was perfectly healthy. I try to look on the bright side. Looking perpetually contagious keeps people from invading my personal space.

My grandmother also said that at a certain age all you can do is be clean and well-pressed. If I have to interact with people who haven’t known me long enough to know I often tie a scarf around my dog’s head and pretend he is Masha from old country (in Russia, butt licks dog), I can be — not put together, but a reasonable facsimile thereof. Years ago at work I had this awesome jacket. You know the one. You put it on, and you’re like Wonder Woman. I was wearing it one day, and one of my employees said to me that a woman had just told her it was a great outfit and you could just tell I had it all together. Let me stress that at the time she said that, I was wondering if both buttons of my trousers were going to slither off, or just one. Also I was wearing shoes that made my feet smell like the breath of rabid buffalo by the end of the day. I was the Doug Henning in Ellen Tracy.

I think about doing stuff and looking nice while doing it. Like making chandeliers out of plastic spoons or painting my nails to resemble Renaissance paintings, but it distracts me from my hobby of reading dog-shaming websites. Oh, and dusting and working and stuff. I live in an area of town where young moms walk their babies competitively. Makeup is involved. Hair is blown out. The babies who can’t even walk yet wear tiny workout suits from Boden and play on iPads mounted to their strollers. The combined total price of the workout wear of one pack of them is as much as my mortgage. And I LOVE them. Because I know every one of them has something they’d just die about if the other pack members knew. Secrets involving a love of spray cheese, an itch in an unmentionable place, perhaps one of them thinks Donald Trump is hot. We’re all total messes! Their messes just have better highlights than mine.

It used to be about having it all. Now it’s about looking like you have it all and perfecting the humblebrag: “Omigosh, sooo many people stop me as soon as I get out of my new Tesla to ask about it and I’m like, can I put my baby in my sling first?” Not that I haven’t perfected mine too. Just the other day I was all can you believe all these stains on my shirt are from one meal?

Am I doing that right?

Susan Wilson writes for yeahandanotherthing.com and likethedew.com. She and her husband Chuck have lived here long enough to know that Midtown does not begin at Highland.

Categories
Opinion The Last Word

Wiped Out!

Do you use the toilet? Are you filthy rich? Do you wish you could make going potty more difficult and time-consuming? Have I got the thing for you! 

Joseph’s is toilet paper. Except it’s not. It’s an experience. It’s a “microcosm of form and function” made from “tender virgin new-growth fibres.” Even better, “the dendritic structure of the inner core provides optimal absorption while the outer layers act as moisture barrier for wet use.” All this is according to the — admittedly beautiful — Joseph’s website.

And that’s just the wipe! We haven’t even gotten to the “hypoallergenic debriding and detoxifying cleanser,” or the moisturizer with “soothing and nourishing emollients,” that “are quickly absorbed by the skin and support the immune system by enhancing the skin’s resilience as a protective barrier.” And, as if that’s not enough, the moisturizer’s “delicate fragrance completes the feeling of pristine perfection.”

Are you with me?

This is a dry adult butt wipe that can be moistened and then used to apply moisturizer to your delicate chapped ass. As my friend Steve Steffens said, it’s for the delicate sphincter.

Now, ladeez, we all know we stink. And we know our gynecologists beat us with their specula whenever we mention something about cleaning our netherlands with anything that “debrides,” but did I mention you’re stinky?

So. I suppose Joseph’s eliminates the need to bathe, and it’s a good thing. You’ll need the time you normally spend in the shower for the entire process of spritzing the cleansing tonic onto a wipe as many times as it takes to feel clean and then using yet more wipes when you apply the moisturizer for protection. You don’t just hop into the restroom. You have an entire Swiss glacial butt facial experience when you have to pop into the gents’ at Bass Pro.

This stuff really needs to be seen to be believed. Joseph’s comes to you packaged like a beautiful box of chocolates. The pads are quilted, downy, and plush. They’re wrapped up with a satin bow. The cleanser and moisturizer are packaged like luxury cosmetics — which I suppose they are.

What would you pay to bathe your tuchus with the fibers of virgins?

How about $275?

I’ll just wait while you get up from the floor, resuscitate yourself, and clean the coffee off the table where you just spit it out.

That’s two months of fresh, clean, moisturized buttocks. If you’re not totally committed, you can get the starter kit for only $110. It doesn’t say how long that lasts. I guess it depends on how much Taco Bell you eat.

Let’s say you LOVE the Joseph’s Badonkadonk Bedewing System. It’s not gonna fit on a standard toilet roll holder. It’s not on a roll, because that’s disgusting. No, you need to consult the Joseph’s Furniture collection. Yes, that’s right. The website has a furniture section. Toilet paper website. Furniture section. Just want to make sure you wrap your brain around that. If you’re a true connoisseur of the Joseph’s system and want to telegraph your love for nature, let me recommend The Joséphier in Natural Warped Ebony Macassar for only $1,100. For your beach house, you can just use the basic brushed stainless for only $550. For your sex room or men’s club (often the same thing), I recommend the hand-wrapped leather model for $950.

You know what I love about this stuff? Everything.

I really super-love how the Joseph’s site makes this huge deal of how natural and environmental it is as opposed to regular toilet paper for troglodytes and oil-guzzling hillbillies. Why should I walk up to Dollar General and get a vulgar 12-pack of Charmin Basic that’s wrapped in a disgusting petrochemical skin when I could spend upwards of $1,300 on a two-month supply of wipes wrapped with a ribbon, cleanser, and moisturizer packed in plastic that’s then wrapped for shipping, put in a plane, flown from Switzerland, stuck on a diesel truck, and delivered to my door where it’s placed in a dead-tree or cowhide holder and bolted to the wall. Plus, I gotta have a maid whose only job is to retie that bow after each of my four children (Chard, Proton, Toile, and Glacier) has had a dump and flushed.

I love that the starter kit is supposedly going into the swag bags at the Oscars. I LOVE the idea of George and Amal arguing about who’s going to run over to Geneva to pick up a pack of tender virgin cellulose because SOMEONE forgot to get it when he was in Zurich last week and SOMEONE ELSE had to use Cottonelle and is now going to have to book a SECOND ANAL BLEACH THIS MONTH because of the redness, YOU CAD!

Joseph’s, if you’re listening. I will totally be your spokesbutt.

Susan Wilson writes for yeahandanotherthing.com and likethedew.com. She and her husband Chuck have lived here long enough to know that Midtown does not start at Highland.

Categories
Opinion The Last Word

Tom Hardy’s Lips

CREDIT: Featureflash | Dreamstime.com

I get Wuthering Heights, Rebecca, and Jane Eyre confused. I always remember that Heathcliff and Catherine are in Wuthering Heights because of that Monty Python sketch where they act it out in semaphore. Obviously, as problems go, this isn’t a bad one. There are just all those wailing women and wives in attics and silent, deeply disturbed men; who can keep up? I tried to watch a movie adaptation of one of these not too long ago. I don’t remember which because they’re all the same, but this had Tom Hardy in it. I couldn’t pay attention to the story because of Tom Hardy’s lips. Have you seen them? Tom Hardy is to lips as Milton Berle was to, er, uh, comedy.

Featureflash | Dreamstime.com

Tom Hardy

Here’s the thing. For every John Irving or Henry James novel I read, I read about 10 Nora Roberts romances. I know I’m supposed to be all cool and hip and be like, oh, I only read David Foster Wallace out loud to Honduran orphans while eating organic acorn tofu in the porch chair my ironically suspendered husband carved from a fallen Appalachian birch maple — very rare — and drinking yaupon beer. Sometimes I’ll watch the movie first, then read the book. That way I can make my holier-than-thou friends’ heads explode. I’ve read some good stuff this way. I’ve also seen some bad stuff this way. Brief Interviews with Hideous Men comes to mind.

People love to rag on Nora because of her formula. There’s a meet cute, they hate each other, they acknowledge their mutual attraction but ignore it, and they end up in an adorable restored bungalow. Like John Irving doesn’t have a formula? Kid has attachment to strange object, there’s a bear, someone is horribly mutilated or somehow disfigured, something gets blown up, and they end up in Amsterdam.

Because I love Steve Yarbrough doesn’t mean I have to hate Vince Flynn. What would we do when we’re stranded in the Charlotte airport if it weren’t for Vince Flynn? Just because I absolutely have to have a bologna sandwich with mayonnaise and Doritos on pasty white bread a couple times a year doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate Amish chicken breasts stuffed with chard and turnips in a balsamic reduction.

I think women are particularly susceptible to secret shames because of Lululemon.

First, whenever I see that name, in my head I pronounce it “Lulu Mon,” and I imagine happy steel drummers and jerk chicken. I think even my father knows what Lululemons are, and he thinks a “crack whore” means she’s good at her job. But in case you get out even less than my father, these things I speak of are fancy, stretchy yoga pants. Except in Jackson, Mississippi, where they are fancy middle-aged-woman-running-up-to-Whole-Foods pants. These yoga pants are well-made, expensive, and their size XL is a 12. Gentlemen, you might be confused. It’s like finding a great pair of Sansabelts and they only go up to a 32. So ladies such as myself, who could really use a good yoga class or 10, can’t wear them. Did I mention they’re expensive? Less than a yard of Spandex that you can’t even put in the dryer, and they won’t make your Cow Face Pose any easier for you.

Anyway, you get your Lululemons and your mandatory copy of Eat, Pray, Love, and then you start eliminating stuff from your diet. And I’m not talking through digestion. You give up wheat, nuts, beans, rice, and start drinking green kale sludge with chia seeds sprinkled on top. Your friend, a reader of Important Books, gives you Deepak Chopra, and you’re off. You hide your Michelob Ultra behind your organic goat’s milk. You realize you’ve never read anything by Joyce Carol Oates, so you buy her entire oeuvre used from Amazon but act like they’re old and came from an independent book store. You start using the word “encounter” instead of “meet.”

You want cool, but let me tell you something: You will never be cool. Read what you want. Eat fast food every now and then. Preferably something with the word “poppers” in the name. You know what? If you love Red Lobster cheddar biscuits, order them! Those biscuits are delightful. If your so-called friends can’t handle the truth of you, dump them. You don’t need that kind of negativity in your life. What you need is more biscuits.

Susan Wilson also writes for yeahandanotherthing.com and likethedew.com. She and her husband Chuck have lived here long enough to know that Midtown does not start at Highland.