The Same Old Song and Dance

It has been a troubling week. A nominee for the Supreme Court has been accused of a series of criminal acts. The accusations came from educated, successful people. People who really don’t have anything to gain. Think of Doctor Blasey Ford, she had to live through it once, then try not to think about it for years, and then she had to live through it again. This time in front of the most biased judiciary since the Revolutionary Tribunal did such an admirable job feeding the guillotine.

You could just tell the white, middle aged, and older, wealthy men had already made up their mind about Kavanaugh, had probably made up their mind the minute the President had nominated him. They would have just handed him a robe on the first day if it hadn’t looked so bad on television. Whether they believe Dr. Blasey Ford or not doesn’t matter to them. Whether they worry about Judge Kavanaugh’s complete, furious, unseemly and certainly unbecoming of a Supreme Court Justice behavior doesn’t factor in at all. They have a chance to place a conservative on the Court and they fear the window may be closing. Who knows what will happen in November. If we could animate the corpse of Pol Pot and nominate him they would rush to vote, because he did such a good job suppressing seditionists and homosexuals.

And now we play a waiting game so one senator from Arizona can assuage his guilt. One senator who made such a big stink about being taking a stand against Trump. Ah, Senator Flake, we hardly knew ye. We are now stuck, waiting for an investigation that should last several months, compressed into a week, declare the judge innocent and hand him the keys to the executive restroom and a cut and paste version of the constitution.

You can call me cynical and you can call me stupid but don’t call me and tell me a republican heavy, male dominated senate judiciary committee is going to give a fat rat’s ass what a couple of women have to say. 

So, again, I thank the fates, I am a man, middle aged, almost ready to retire, safe from the predations of our government. I have sons, so they should be safe, but, I watch the women, women who know they are becoming cannon fodder for the great, white old boy’s network. And it makes me worry. What are we teaching our daughters, what are we teaching our sons? Do we even care?

Shoe shopping, and other war stories.

Over the weekend my wife and I went to the mall to pick up her sunglasses.  She is very practical, and frugal, so getting her to buy prescription sunglasses took considerable salesmanship, endless arm twisting, and the right sale, or at least the right sale.  She said they were very comfortable, she looked charming and pretty in them, and she could see, even in daylight.  She was flush with achievement, and ready for a new challenge.  "Hey, let's go over to Von Maur and look for some shoes," she said.

"Sure, that sounds easy, why not?"  I knew there were a lot of good reasons, but, she is my wife, and sometimes you need to sacrifice.  So, we went.

It started pretty innocently, there were not many people (it was early) so I braved the inner area, feeling brave, invincible, immortal.  Things were smooth, and I was flying high.  "Let's go look in the "bargain room," she said, an evil twinkle in her eye.

"Sure."  But, as I got closer, I smelled the carnage, decay, death coming from inside, and said, "I'll just wait out here."  Quickly finding a chair towards the edge of the department, with my back to the wall, and good lines of vision, I sat down.  It was ideal, nobody could sneak up behind me, and I could keep all of the shoe shoppers in sight.

Off to one side was a group, maybe 4 or 5, shopping together, for safety probably.  One of the women was wearing a dress (a flowery mid length number with a flutter hem) and decided a pair of cowboy (cowgirl?) boots would compliment it nicely.  Standing in front of the mirror and admiring the boots and dress together, she asked, "What do you think of this look?"

Most of her friends were pretty supportive, but one, an older, angry looking woman (who had been slamming down the complimentary coffee, right out of the carafe) in a pink jump suit with a flowered belt, and matching purse said, "those boots, that dress, and makeup, you look like you should work the evening shift at the I-74 Holy Diesel Truck-o-Rama. (where your 5th truck wash is always free)."

That is the wrong thing to say to a woman with such easy access to pointy healed shoes.  The woman
in the dress grabbed a Charles David Sway Pump, (only $129.95, compare to $195.00) shrieked at a pitch that would have disrupted the sonar echo location of bats, leaped into the air and landed a glancing blow to the temple of the caustic woman in the pink jump suit.  She saw what was coming and grabbed some Jessica Simpson Roxee Platform Sandal (on sale for $59.95, down from $70.00), and while wiping a small trickle of blood from her cheek started circling the woman in the dress.

By now, other shoppers had started to form a circle around the combatants, and a low, guttural chant was starting to pulse, like a wave, from the crowd, "shoes, shoes, shoes, winner gets the shoes."  Some of them were holding lit torches, (where did they get those?) and there was a vendor selling shots of cranberry vodka, and brie, with water crackers.

Soon, all of the women were wrestling for shoes, and the floor was littered with little nylon socks, and flip flops.  It was a dystopian view, filled with anger, and hate, and then one woman, stopped pounding another woman's head on the floor and said, "your dress would look so cute with those Steve Madden Palet Gladiator Sandals, (only $49.95, noramllyShoe $89.00).

All of the women turned toward each other and started helping pick out shoes, and purses, soon they were headed to casual wear, and beach attire.  Followed by the sounds of distant, disturbing drumming.

My wife found some shoes she liked, but missed the show.  Poor girl.

Hey, thank you, ladies,

Saturday, I went shopping for clothes with my wife.  I was all coffeed up, feeling bold and vigorous, and unstoppable, women's clothing department at Kohl's be damned.  Here I come.

Things went pretty well, for the first while.  But, slowly I noticed the shoppers moving in coordinated patterns.  Sure, it looked random, but a practiced eye could see trouble forming.  With each rotation around the sale racks the circle was getting smaller, the trap was closing, the garrote was tightening.

Fortunately, I had seen this movie before and made a mad dash to the safety of the aisle.  I could hear several of the women hissing as they glared at me, just out of their reach.

My wife came over and said she was going to the other end of the department.  So, I went along.  When we arrived I did a quick recon of the layout.  Good lines of sight, a lot of room to maneuver, this would be pretty safe.

Standing, watching, waiting, I was caught completely off guard by a woman who managed to fly in under my radar.  Crashing wildly through the golf skirts from Ralph Lauren, she clipped the mannequin wearing the Gloria Vanderbilt evening gown and sent it into the display of capri pants for misses.  Turning the corner she gathered speed and was bearing down on my position behind the "tank tops and summer blouses" display.

Thinking quickly, I waited until she was less than a meter from my position, and stepped deftly behind the Jennifer Lopez fitted jeans.  I had a clear shot to the safety of the aisle.

But, at the last minute two women cut off my escape, each swearing that the dress they had seen last week was "right over here" and both pointing in a different direction.

I had no time to spare, they were blocking my exit the and the baby stroller had recovered and was gathering momentum at the swimwear display.  "Ladies," I said, "they are giving away shopping machetes at the service counter to the first 25 customers."  That was all it took, they took off running like motorcycles, and I had the safety of the aisle.

Right across the way was the cologne and perfume counter where I saw a bottle of "Hugo" and that made me think of Victor Hugo, which reminded me of "Jump Jump" by Garland Jeffries, so I logged into iTunes and bought the song, right there, next to the combat zone of the women's wear department.  Life is funny that way sometimes.

For your enjoyment, I bring you the newest addition to my iPhone.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uUCCOBbm40I

Fighting for our freedom to have dinner.