Some Pig

One From the Archives; Or, Mess With Karma at Your Own Peril

My audience is clamoring for a new post!  Which, translated, means my coworker asked, "When are you going to post again?  I keep looking and it's the same stuff."  So much for the screaming masses, eh?

Well, given that we have been short of any new inaugurations, my students are more annoying than cute right now, and I never see Warren to have any kind of postworthy exchange, I have to reach back into the plethora of Some Pig experiences to share a story of my yoot.  (Anyone get the My Cousin Vinny reference?  Vinny: "The two yoots..."  Judge: "Yoots?"  Vinny:  "Yeah, yoots.  The two yoots..."  Trivia experts! Name the two famous actors who played bit parts in that movie!). 

Okay, I appear to have digressed yet again. On to our story...

Setting:  A small junior high school in Podunksville, The State Formerly Known as Home.  Time:  The late seventies-almost-eighties.  I was, as is so often the case, a rather unattractive specimen of early-adolescent humanity:  Thick glasses, equally thick braces, a thick middle, and a thick crop of bushy, frizzy hair.  Upon retrospect, I was also rather thick-headed when it came to peer relations and I often just didn't "get" some of the all-important subtleties of peer relations.  Add to that a large vocabulary, an inability to keep my mouth shut and a near-total dearth of athletic ability and what do you have?  As you can imagine, it was rather thick going at times for one so blessed at such an awkward stage of life.  Yeesh.

Going to a small school, I had no choice but to interact with just about everyone in my class.  There was no real way to avoid people you didn't like unless it was to not talk to anyone at all (which one kid of my acquaintance did - I went to school with him for the better part of eight years and I still can't tell you what his voice sounded like).  Cue the entrance of the antagonist of our story.  "Rhonda" was just about the antithesis of the 13-year-old me: A popular girl with a blond pageboy, perfect preppy teeth, an affinity for sports and the admiration of everyone in our little hormonally-charged world (In the interest of truth in journalism, I will add that she was the kind of ruddy-skinned blond one usually associates with sunburnt, overweight frat boys in Cancun, and she had a bubble butt.  Not that I'm trying to sway your opinion or anything, I am merely relating the facts.).  Rhonda was also the alpha bitch of the mean girl pack, and THE DAUGHTER OF MY DAD'S NEW BOSS.  Yeah, how's that for a comfortable situation?  I might just as well have put on a sweater made of pork chops and wandered into the lion's cage at the zoo.

Rhonda hated me, for reasons I'll explain later, but for most of our acquaintance she kept it at a simmer.  Shortly after she moved to Podunkyville in fifth grade, she marshalled all the other girls in class to sit with her and exiled me to sitting with the girl who wore lip gloss outside her lips.  In sixth and seventh grade she would do things like make fun of me for wearing a plaid shirt that had green in it on a Thursday, because only queers wore green on Thursdays, or get everyone in class to stare at me when I wasn't aware they were watching - not very nice, but not the worst of the worst.  Then, in eighth grade, she joined forces with "Lindy," an unholy terror of a girl who also hated me, and they conspired to make my life miserable.  The most vivid memory of their efforts is the stretch of time when, during our brief recess periods after lunch, they would get all the girls in our lunch to form a circle around me and harass me, verbally and physically.  Girls I talked to everyday, girls who were my friends inside the building - including people I'm still friends with even as we speak (um, type) - joined in the fun. I still remember going to math class after one such attack, shaken to the core, where I sat next to my 'best' friend, who had just been wholeheartedly participating in the Caroline roast.  She whispered something to me about how she was sorry, but she didn't dare risk making Rhonda and Lisa angry (The only two girls who didn't join in were my friends Jen and Vanessa, both of whom didn't care about being popular, and both of whom pointed out that those girls weren't really my friends.  Would that we all had such perspective at age 13!).  Finally, after enduring three or so days of torment, I went to the principal's office in hysterics and told all.  THAT didn't endear me to anyone, you can be sure, but at least I got to be an office aide at lunchtime and no longer had to go outside.

Fast forward a couple years - okay, decades.  Rhonda moved away in 9th grade, moved back briefly, then went off to prep school when we were sophomores.  We'd see each other from time to time, since our fathers still worked together, and we'd make strained polite conversation.  Then she went to St. Lawrence for college, got a long-term sweetheart, and became a landscape architect.  Later I heard she and the college sweetheart got married happily ever after, blah blah blah. 

Except - !

Except that, shortly after their honeymoon, Rhonda came home to find said sweetheart-now-husband firmly ensconced in bed with a woman not his wife - a woman with whom, it turns out, he'd been consorting since well before the wedding.  The marriage, needless to say, was over, over before all the wedding gifts had even been unwrapped.

How do you like THEM apples?

When I was in college, between the bullying episodes and the marital meltdown, I worked with Rhonda's mom.  I found out that Rhonda had picked on me because she was jealous and angry.  She was the second-to-last child in a large family that was coming apart at the seams.  They had moved to Podunkyville from Cape E. to escape the effects of her father's philandering, and she was miserable.  Then her parents and my parents had tried to throw us together as instant friends, because, hey!  We were the same age!  There she was, a newcomer from an unhappy household being forced to socialize with the cherished daughter of an intact family.  So, yeah, from that perspective I can feel some glimmer of sympathy for her, but not a whole hell of a lot.  When I heard the news about her ex-husband, I didn't feel glee or satisfaction.  What I felt was vindicated.  What I hoped then, and still hope to this day, is that between her personal woes and that experience, she felt exactly the same amount of misery, pain, and anguish she inflicted upon me.  I hope she cried hot tears alone in her room and wondered what the hell was wrong with her that such things would keep happening.  I hope she looked in the mirror and wished she were anyone else, anyone other than the miserably inadequate creature staring back at her.  As no less than Justin Timberlake observed, what goes around comes around, and I hope to this day she got the full measure of what she had coming.  Hey, I'm being fair and balanced, here - I don't wish her MORE pain and misery than I felt, just the SAME - but that would be plenty in itself. 

(By the way, don't feel too badly for her.  She married some Boston Brahmin, the year after Warren and I got married, and she's probably doing just fine, thank you.) 

This. Is. An. Outrage. (Updated)

If you haven't seen this yet, you should.  Everyone should.  And then we should ask ourselves, are these the "values" we want our elected leadership to reflect?  Because this was dreamed up by people who belong to the very same demographic that has been "energized" and "revitalized" by that paragon of foreign policy experience, Sarah Palin.  I certainly hope the mainstream media covers this with at least the same intensity and for the same duration as they did the non-event that occurred when Obama used the "lipstick on a pig" expression. 

I used to admire John McCain as a public servant who actually possessed an internal compass of some sort.  And while he certainly isn't responsible for this travesty, it definitely reflects extremely poorly on him, if only by association.

This is a sad, sad day for our nation as a civilized society.

*********

And if that isn't enough, here's a joke for you:

What's the difference between Sarah Palin and Dick Cheney?

Lipstick.

What's At Stake

As an amateur historian, I'm always looking for historical patterns in current events.  As such, I do not necessarily see this election in the terms that the differing campaigns would have us view it.  This election is not really about 'change' vs. status quo, nor about 'why Washington doesn't work' or who's really a patriot or any of the other arglebargle they use to package the campaigns so that we hoi polloi will choose one side over the other.  No, this election is about direction - in which direction do we, as a nation, want to go?  Do we want to be forward-looking or past-looking?  Are we attempting to reclaim our putative glory days, or adjust to a world in which much has changed?

You can't study world history without noticing that the human race tends toward empire-building.  Whether it's ancient Sumer or the Anazasi, we seem to have a built-in tendency, collectively, to want to accrue power, solidify borders, and control resources.  That's an observation, not a value judgement; without doing those three things, we might not have survived for very long as a life form.  So we create empires.  Furthermore, empires are a life form, and as such they have a natural life span of their own.  That follows a fairly predictable pattern, too:  A new power arises, because of superior resources, or technology, or leadership, or population.  That power challenges the established order, either internally (as in the Chinese empires) or externally (Carthage v. Rome).  The new order is better able to take advantage of circumstances, more willing to change and be flexible, better able to capitalize on events and resources, more efficiently and effectively governed.  The new order takes over, asserting dominion over the geography and population of the former power.  What's important to note here is that empires need to grow and change continuously or they become sclerotic and diseased, often felled as much by decay from within as threats from without.

The empire I know best (mostly because I suffered through four years of high school Latin) is the Romans - you know, as in "Latin is a language/As dead as it can be,/It killed off all the Romans/and now it's killing me"?  Let's look at what happened to that empire.  This is a gross oversimplification of an incredibly complex topic, but here's what happened:

• The empire pushed itself to its physical limits in its quest for ever more geographic resources (farmland, territory, etc.) in its quest to maintain the functioning of the central city.
• The ruling class, alternatively in fear of their lives from the various lunatics in change and desirous of grabbing a chunk of the good lives for themselves, didn't govern effectively, but instead settled for taxing an ever-growing underclass with ever-shrinking resources at an ever-higher rate while they argued incessantly about largely irrelevant cultural issues.
• Maintenance of the famed infrastructure (roads, aqueducts, sewers) was allowed to fall by the wayside as the emperor's pet projects took precedence over boring things like providing water.
• Society grew increasingly dependent upon immigrants to supply necessary labor, even as they distrusted and feared their influence on Roman society and tried to limit their rights.
• Rulers relied more and more on sheer military might to maintain and enforce control over the borderlands, something they could not continue to do indefinitely.

I could go on, but you get the idea.  Now let's turn to the good ole US of A.  We are, whether we're willing to admit it or not, an empire.  Oh, sure, we don't attempt to control other lands outright, but in terms of our influence on the world's political process and economic well-being, and our sway over international pop culture and intellectual discourse, we are every bit as dominant in our day as Rome was in hers.  And, quite frankly, that influence and domination is under attack from forces both outside and within our control.  Here's how I see it:

• As with ancient Rome, we rely on outsiders to do more and more and more of the work that allows us to function from day to day.  As we become more reliant on them for their effort, they become less reliant on us and more skilled and able to do for themselves.  Look at China.  Look at India.
• Just as Rome relied on the breadbaskets of Spain and France to function, we rely on the oil deposits of Saudi Arabia and other oil-rich nations.  That dependence, as Rome should teach us, renders us vulnerable to forces - and governments - outside our control.  With America crying for oil, do you think Russia gives a damn about what we want anymore?
• Infrastructure, infrastructure, infrastructure.  Romans had running water.  Romans had FLUSH TOILETS.  When Rome fell, we lost that technology - lost it! - for the better part of a thousand years.  Do you know how often humans create and then LOSE technological savvy?  Never has that happened at any other point in our history.  Now go to any Asian country.  Oh, sure, you can still find peasants working in rice paddies with water buffalo the way their ancestors did in 832 A.D. - but you get to them by high-speed train.  When was the last time our nation invested in a country-wide upgrade to our transportation system that didn't involve roads and cars?
• Money is the lifeblood of a modern nation, just as it was in ancient Rome, and as such, it shows the signs of illness and health early on. Ancient Rome struggled with its monetary supply. As coins were increasingly taken out of circulation by the upper classes, Rome had to go farther and farther afield to find sources of precious metals and tax revenues. When Jay-Z flashed those euros in his video in preference to tha Benjamins, that should've been a signal to every person in America that something's not healthy in our body politic.

Given the increasing speed at which our world moves, it's not surprising that the Roman empire lasted for the better part of 500 years before declining, and our empire has lasted just over fifty (so far) and is now in serious doubt. When I add all this up, I see a once-strong nation - a modern empire - that is in decline.  You can argue that that's actually a good thing, but that's a topic for another day.  My point here (and I don't mean just the one on top of my head) is that we stand at a crossroads.  We can either continue to look backwards for guidance on how to adjust to these new realities, or we can look ahead.  I say that the philosophy of governance we've been following from just after WWII to today worked for its time, but isn't sufficient to address our needs anymore.  Realities have changed.  The costs and availability of resources have changed.  The educational, social, and aspirational gap between us and other cultures has narrowed.  We can continue to lead - and be led - by an outdated model, or we can join the rest of the world and acknowledge that this model doesn't work anymore. 

The idea of America as a cultural juggernaut backed up by insuperable military might is no longer accurate.  Look at what's going on in the rest of the world: Great swathes of the world don't need us to function anymore.  They are educating their own people, building their own infrastructures, raising their own standards of living, and with the exception of the Wal-Martification of China, they are doing it mostly without relying on us to make it happen.  When we discovered we had damned few Arabic speakers in our government because language education wasn't a priority, that should've been a wake-up call.  When New Orleans drowned after Katrina, that should've been a wake-up call.  When that bridge fell down and went 'boom' in Minnesota, that should've been a wake-up call.  Hell, every gloom-and-doom report from the past thirty years outlining in excruciating detail just how far behind the rest of the developed world we lag in our educational attainment should've been a wake-up call, but apparently we don't want to listen! 

So let me say this at least one more time before we go to the polls:  The model that we have, people, isn't working.  The idea that markets will take care of everything, that allowing the ultra-wealthy to duck out of the tax code, that showing force on the world stage will lead others to do our bidding?  That idea has been proven wrong, over and over and over again.  Do I think that the two parties that we have offer two truly divergent points of view?  Well, no.  The parties are very close in many ways, and they reflect the overall conservatism of our country.  (Do you think we have screaming liberal whackos in our country?  Go to Europe and spend five minutes talking to one of their left-wingers.  Our liberals look like Richard Milhouse Nixon in comparison.)  But there are enough differences that they are significant.  And the significance, this year, rests in which world you think we live in.  If you think we still live in a world in which America has unquestionable influence in world events and is able to continue raising the standard of living for its citizens without necessitating significant changes in its tax code, health care system, or educational offerings, then by all means, vote for McCain.  If you think the biggest challenge facing us today is whether or not kids learn about monkeys or angels in science class, what women do with their bodies, and the wealthy classes not having enough money to buy more and thus create demand for goods, please, vote Republican.  Right after that, take your money and invest it in a colosseum, so that you can make money off all the people coming to watch the gladiator fights to take their minds off their problems.  On the other hand, if you have the slightest concern, even the faintest gnawing wonder, about what role America is going to choose to play in a world where the terms of the game are changing, where investment in knowledge and human capital is going to trump investments in machinery, where continued reliance on fossil fuels opens the door to giving despots and dictators influence on the world stage, well, then, I think you know what I'm going to say.

Spread the News

If you haven't heard of this lady, take a look for yourself.  She was interviewed on NPR today and is a real, live, honest-to-goodness human being.  Then forward this link to everyone you know, so we don't wind up with four years of this kind of "bipartisanship" to look forward to.

Why It Matters

All right, despite my previous post, I'm breaking the seal and getting involved in the election.  Why? Well, the Republicans have managed to do it again - they've managed to take an issue that raises many real questions and hide it behind a wall of outrage, casting the rest of us as lazy slobs looking for cheap titillation (which we may be, but still - these are the people who watch FOX).  Just to make it clear, here is why the news about Bristol Palin's pregnancy does matter, claims of it being private family business notwithstanding:

1.  Sarah Palin is socially archconservative, and as such, she espouses a worldview that brooks no accommodation for different ideas and demands that we all fall into line with the one 'right' philosophy of social policy - i.e., hers.  According to this value system, the one and only appropriate method of instructing young people about sexuality and sexual health is abstinence education, period, the end.  Despite all the evidence to the contrary, all the statistical evidence, all the anecdotal evidence, and the evidence that sits right across from her at the dining table every night, if Sarah Palin were to have any say in structuring governmental policy, the only thing any of our children will learn about sex ed is "just say no,"  Which leads me to my second point ...

2.  Is it only me, or is it quite possible to imagine that many of these people who are telling us that this is a private issue, or that every family goes through this, or that they feel even more sympathetic to the Palins now, would not be quite so forgiving if Bristol were a little more, um, ethnic?  What if she were named LaTrina, or Guadeloupe?  What if she came from a single-parent, low-income household and had dropped out of school?  What if her family wasn't particularly religious?  Why is it that it's okay to make a mistake if you're from the same background and belief system, but you can be rolled under the bus without a qualm if you're a Godless heathen?

3.  Also, what if, instead of being pregnant by a boyfriend, Bristol had been raped?  What if the father were a relative or a close family friend?  What if she had some kind of complication that would endanger her life if she carried the baby to term? Do you mean to tell me that Sarah Palin would actually look at the human being that she has brought into the world and raised for seventeen years and force her daughter to bear a child to term if it meant sacrificing her own daughter's life???  Do you mean to tell me that she would look her own child in the eye and say, "I'm sorry, honey, but the fetus inside you is worth more to me than YOU are"?  Because that's what she says she believes, people, let's not forget that!

So, while I agree that Bristol Palin herself should be considered off limits to media speculation (I'm waiting for the Fox caption calling her a "babymama" - should I hold my breath?), I don't think the fact that this has happened to the Palin family in general should be off limits.  This speaks volumes to the kind of person the Republicans want us to elect, to the values she holds, and to the goals she would work toward, if, God (and Buddha, Yahweh, and Allah) forbid, we are foolish enough to put her next door to the White House.

If A Tree Falls In Your Front Yard, Does Your Neighbor Make A Sound?

Here's a tale to take your mind off all the arglebargle from the chattering classes ranging from "Biden:  Great Choice!" to "Biden: Unmitigated Disaster!"

 My parents live in Small Town, USA.  Most of the houses on their street are well-tended, with one notable exception.  This couple's lawn is littered with rusty hunks of metal, several semi-broken swing sets (I guess if you add up all the partially functional swing sets, it counts as one full set), tires, rims, and various and sundry unrecognizable objets de crap.  Their front porch would be nice if it weren't full of non-functioning household appliances and broken couches. The house itself used to look one step above ramshackle, until the electric utility sided it for free under a low-income homeowners' program.  They have a number of poorly socialized dogs who run barking and snarling to the road whenever anyone walks by. Toys for all seasons are left all over the place all the time, so that one might find a sled resting next to a bike on top of a skateboard, all of it jumbled in the packed dirt that comprises most of the yard.  Keep this in mind as events unfold...

At a recent visit to the ancestral seat, I noticed that a very tall, very old, very dead pine tree at the foot of my parents' yard had been taken down.  Apparently the electric utility finally decided to notice that said old, dead tree was immediately adjacent to the power lines.  Not fancying a midnight call from aggrieved customers suddenly deprived of power, they felled the tree.  After that, my father chain-sawed the tree into sections with plans to cut it up further into kindling.  Right after that, in the dark of night, someone came along and STOLE the cut-up chunks of very old, very dead tree, right out of my parents' front yard.

But wait!  There's more! Thanks to the small-town grapevine, my parents know whodunnit; namely, the trashy neighbors down the street.  My parents' across-the-street neighbor (hang with me here, I know it gets a little complicated) ambled by this house just after the Great Tree Theft Caper and noticed, hmmm, all of a sudden, there's a big stack of pine logs in their side yard!  "So, Slimebag,*" she said sweetly, "where'd you get that wood?"  "I took down a tree," he said defensively, throwing a tarp over the pile as quickly as he could.  Now he's taken to parking his rig in front of his woodpile, instead of off to the side as he's done since, oh, he moved into the house.  Coincidence?  You decide!

There are a couple of things that piss me off about this scenario.  First, there's the fact that my seventy-two-year-old father spent the better part of a day chainsawing this tree so this much younger asshat could waltz away with it, because nothing says 'classy' like ripping off senior citizens.  Second, the woman of the house has a couple of kids from her earlier marriage living with them.  Clearly they're going to grow up to be model citizens with those exemplars of moral living around.  Third, if they are planning to burn that pine wood for heat they are just as stupid as they look, as they're going to soot up their chimney and start a house fire sooner rather than later.  Last but far from least, this is just part of a greater pattern of general irresponsibility and moochery this couple exhibits. 

A case in point:  July 4th was a beautiful, picture-perfect day in the State Formerly Known As Home.  The sky was a cloudless azure. Cool breezes kept the golden sunshine from becoming oppressively hot.  The grass was a green to rival the Emerald Isle, and flowers bloomed in gardens and byways.  In short, when the advertising flacks came up with the slogan "the way life should be," this is what they had in mind.  I strolled back to my parents' from downtown, a route that took me past the Slimebags' residence.  As I got to their house, I noticed that, on a day that was going to hit seventy-five degrees tops, a day when the air was so cool that people were wearing jackets as late as ten o'clock in the morning in July, these people had all their windows shut and their air conditioners running full blast.  Why?  Because they don't care - the utility covers their bills!  Which means, in the end, that my parents, and everyone else on that street, are paying that couple's bills. 

Look, I'm a good bleeding-heart knee-jerk pinko commie liberal who believes in socialized medicine and mandatory recycling.  I truly believe that we, the people, all need to have a social safety net so our fellow human beings don't find themselves cold and hungry and homeless.  But by the same token, that doesn't mean you get to be a boil on the butt of society.  As the saying goes, I don't care how poor you are, you can still pick up your yard (I don't know who said it first, but it wasn't me). When this guy chucks his empty beer cans on the ground and brags to the across-the-street neighbor about how much he gets for free from the utility company (or the town, or the state), I can see why people turn Republican.  Plus, as my mom pointed out, if the guy had come up and asked them for the wood, they would have given it to him anyway!  Geez, just making even a token gesture of $25 for the wood would show some reasonable amount of human decency.

The conclusion of this tale is not especially satisfying.  My parents reported the theft to the police, who had no recourse given that all the evidence, as any good CSI would tell you, is purely circumstantial.  Warren got really pissed off and tried to get a look at the wood pile, but a snarling dog changed his mind PDQ.  This couple is definitely personae non grata with the neighborhood, but they were already anyway.  I could hope for a chimney fire, but I definitely wouldn't wish that on a house with kids in it.  I'll settle for a nice, deep splinter somewhere especially painful.

* Not their real name. In case you hadn't guessed.

Where Angels Fear To Tread

I got an email recently from a "friend" of mine, and I say friend in quotes because the wench sent me a CHAIN LETTER.  Gah!  I hate those things!  I won't name any names, but you know who you are, Tracy.  Anyway, when I realized what my friend-who-shall-remain-anonymous - let's call her "Stacy" - had sent me, my first reaction was unprintable.  Then I read it.  And while I still hate chain letters and all schemes of that ilk, this is actually pretty interesting.  First, the original writer had the cojones to state a specific time when all this good fortune was supposed to transpire.  Second, the artwork that came with this tiding of imminent good fortune was ... what's the word I'm looking for?  Sublime?  Inspirational?  Wait, I think I have it now - atrocious!  That's the word I was looking for.  It's just so ... so ... so achingly bad, it transcends the boundaries of tasteless "inspirational" New Age-y angel-themed art, almost reaching the heights (or depths) of Elvis on velvet, dogs playing poker, paint-by-number Last Suppers, and wolf/eagle/Native American montages.  With dreamcatchers, of course, don't forget the dreamcatchers.  I'm not sure the King of Kings and Lord of Lords would approve of His heavenly hosts (hostesses?) dressing like extras from the disco scenes in Saturday Night Fever, what with the slave bracelets and bad perms going on, not to mention halter top dresses with no obvious means of, um, support built in.  And what's with the vengeance/piety theme here?  Is this picture meant to show two facets of the same angel, or two different angels?  If the latter, does the angel with the raised sword intend to smite the praying angel, or is she meant to represent the wrath of God coming down on the heads of the unbelievers (in which case I had better watch out for stray thunderbolts)?  This purdy pitcher looks like something one would find on a commemorative plate struck by the Franklin Mint, or airbrushed on a 70's-vintage van replete with rust stains.

Having been caught unawares by this mass-mailed missive, I decided this was the perfect opportunity to test the whole chain letter theory for once and for all.  By publishing an actual time, the letter opened itself up to confirmation via the scientific method.  After all, if no one contacted me at 9:53 am the day after I sent the letter along to confirm I'd won the lottery, tell me I'd inherited a fortune from a great-aunt I never knew I had, or inform me of other good news, I would know this chain letter for the crock it was.  I immediately inflicted the letter on seven of my long-suffering friends and acquaintances (hey there F&As!  Holla!) and sat back to await the impending influx of glad tidings. 

I'm sure you are all a-twitter to find out what happened, being totally unable to foresee on your own just how effective your average "lucky" chain letter is.  Jack s*&^ is what happened.  First, I forgot to keep an eye on the time and when I finally remembered, it was 9:59 and I'd blown it.  Second, by default I can tell you that no one attempted to make any communcation with me at 9:53.  No one called to inform me that my heretofore unknown great-auntie had died and left me a fortune.  Warren didn't suddenly blurt out, "You know that ridiculously trendy and completely useless knickknack you want?  I decided to buy it for you."  The only being of any species who attempted to communicate with me around that time was the cat, who was (as per usual) on the wrong side of the door and who wanted me to correct that sad situation posthaste.  To which I say, feh on chain letters!  Now I feel perfectly justified in deleting all of them, even the ones that were started by a young cancer victim who just wants postcards from around the world.  So if you get any of these in the future, don't bother sending them to me (especially you, Stacy) because I will screw with your luck and do it with a smile on my face and an Irish blessing on my lips (yeah, I've gotten that one a million times already too).

BTW, I have been wracking my brain in vain to come up with some kind of title or caption for this stellar work of art, but my wits fail me.  So I am running a contest.  The person to come up with the funniest explanation of this picture wins a gift card worth $10 for a store of your choice.  Well, maybe not of your choice - I am not going to ask Tiffany's for no punk-ass $10 gift card, yo.  And by "funniest" I mean what *I* find funniest.  If you want to have a say in the judging, get your own blog and run your own contest, you lazy bunch of slackers you.