Next, Lex

Who are these people who can afford to give brand new Lexuses (Lexi? Lexesi?) as presents for Christmas? Not a little used Honda or a new Ford, but a Brand New Luxury car. Who are these people, where do they hang out and do they need a friend, daughter, administrator, house keeper or mere acquaintance?  

Quite a few people I know including myself are barely making payments or just living hand-to-mouth like so many others nowadays. And the makers of LEXUS have the nerve to rub into my face the fact that I’m broke. Again. Still.  Really? Thanks for reminding me that I have 10 more payments on a 12 year old car. Thanks for reminding me that I have to splice together two paychecks to pay my mortgage. Thank you for reminding me that I am nowhere near the 10 percent of the people who have 90 percent of the wealth in this country.

Oh yeah, and THANK YOU, Lexus for reminding me that the rate on my credit card just doubled because  I reached my limit and didn't make a payment because I had to use cash to buy gifts for the kids at church whose house burned down last week because they couldn’t afford to keep their heat on and had to use a space heater for warmth, which shorted out and caused the fire, ultimately taking away everything they ever had in life.  Yeah. Thanks.

Honestly, I would think that people who are considering buying a brand new luxury car as a gift would probably not be watching TMZ anyway. Wouldn’t they be at the Vanderpool party sipping spiked eggnog and munching on cookies made with gold dust and diamond butter?

And with the economy the way it is right now, reminding most of us that we can’t even afford what you’re peddling is not too bright of an idea if you ask me, Lexus. But then again, you wouldn’t bother asking me anything anyway, would you?  I’m just a slovenly middle class worker who is just trying to get by. I wouldn’t think about buying your overpriced, poorly disguised Toyota anyway. I would get a Honda. Or a Hyundai. Well, that’s what I have now, so. . .but anyway, it wouldn’t be no Lexus.

So keep your snooty patooty commercials to yourself and let us regular folk continue to dream of our big, hulking overpriced not so luxury SUVs and Cross Countries, uh, Cross Overs. Whatever.  We don’t need no stinking Lexuseses.

Stupid name anyway.

Sir Prize

No one is a bigger supporter of those who serve in the military than me. All of the important men in my life have military connections. My father was a WWII vet, all three of my brothers were in the army, and all of my husbands, past and present served as well. I’ve only had two husbands by the way, and consecutively not concurrently. But any who, I have the utmost respect and admiration for those who serve our country and I’m always happy and filled with joy and relief when they return from a tour away from home.

Nothing gives you a better feeling than when you see your loved one return from facing war or the possibility of war abroad. But lately, and I mean in the last few weeks or so, there has been an influx of news specials featuring service personnel’s’ “surprise” homecomings. And frankly, it’s gettin’ on my nerves.

I’ll admit the first 5, 10, even 20 times were very touching, real tear jerkers if you will. But when it happens every other day for three weeks, it becomes somewhat oh-not-this-againish. Don’t get me wrong, I want them to come home and be greeted lovingly by family and friends and even well meaning strangers. And there should be tears of joy, there should be hugs and kisses, there should be total relief filled faces. What there shouldn’t be is a full camera crew including director, producer and two assistant grips filming the entire occasion.

The problem is that it seems so staged now, there’s just no real feel of genuine emotion coming through the flat screen anymore.

As if on cue, camera one pans to little Timmy conveniently sitting on the opposite side of the room. Reporter, report! What little Timmy doesn’t know is that his dad, Big Tim is returning home from Iraq today and will surprise him in the middle of his English class (A class that little Timmy is failing terribly by the way. He continues to spell Iraq with two ‘k’s and a ‘w’. We may want to think about surprising little Timmy with a DVD of Sesame Street when this is all over.)

Now pan to the opposite side of the room and BAM! In walks Big Tim in full Army camouflage garb. Quick, back to little Timmy. Surprise look and run, little Timmy, run. Jump in daddy’s arms and hide your face while making sobbing noises. Big Tim, kiss little Timmy on the head and tell him you love him. Little Timmy, look into the camera and say, I love you too daddy. Bury face in daddy’s shoulder, and . . . scene.


Wait, we have to do that one over. Kayla was in the background eating her boogers. Again. Can someone escort Kayla to the cafeteria for a snack please? Now let’s take it from little Timmy’s surprise expression. Action!

And so it goes time and time again. I expect there to be more of these scenes until the end of the year.

Don’t get me wrong. Like I said, I want them to come home and be greeted with love and open arms. My issue is with whomever it was who called Channel 5 and told them that Big Tim would be at little Timmy’s school at exactly 8:16 Tuesday morning. Not much of a surprise now, is it TV news crew? Yeah, the camera gave it away just a little. Well, maybe not for little Timmy. He’s a little slow.

A New Day

Yesterday sucked for me. But with a little bit of quiet time and some encouragement from friends who didn’t even know they were encouraging me, I made it through. You ever get news that’s not necessarily bad, but when you get it, you react as if it’s just the worse thing to happen since the flood of double aught two BC? LAWD Why me??? How could this happen?? Not now, Sweet Jesus! Uh-huh, one of those. Well that was me yesterday.

I was mad, hurt, dumbfounded, irked, pissed, and at one point extremely hungry, but I didn’t want to eat, because I was so ANGRY. I was gonna show those mean ol’ people a thing a two. I wasn’t going to eat lunch! But I remembered I had brought in those delicious noodles and my mouth started watering. Yeah, those cheap noodles where you get like 1,679 for $1? Man, add some garlic powder, a little green onion, white pepper, some grilled chicken and a little parmesan cheese, and you got yourself something right there. Oh, yeah I have that recipe copywritten so don’t EVEN think about going all Paula Deenish on me and calling it your own.

So anywho, once I sat down and had lunch with a friend I felt better. I was still hurt, but the cut didn’t feel as deep. Then later that day, after I stopped at my favorite store (to be revealed later), I had forgotten all about the horrid happenstance from earlier in the day. Until my husband brought it up. “So what happened at work?” When I told him, HE got all mad, and I had to calm him down. And in telling him that it wasn’t so bad, that it wasn’t the end of the world and that worse things have happened, I realized that maybe the whole thing wasn’t so bad after all. What was the final effect on me in the end? Not a doggone thing. Nothing in my life would change. So what the heck was I griping for? Who knows?

And this morning I woke up with a better attitude and a regenerated understanding of how life can be all that I need it to be if I stop letting the stupid stuff get to me. Things happen and some people are put on this earth to make those things happen. I can either stop and let those people and things get to me, or I can continue on my path to get where I’m going. When something bad happens, I have to put it behind me as soon as possible and look forward to moving on.

That's the best thing for anyone to do.

Today is a new day. Don’t look back on tomorrow. You might run into a wall and knock out a tooth. That happened to me in 1st grade.