Holy
crap in a Bundt pan...
Due to the
recent well-publicized shortage of
amateur websites produced by assholes who consider themselves to be
clever, I
have been called into action. My name is Jeff Kay, and I’m an
Ugly American living
on the cusp of a mid-life crisis, near Scranton, PA. And I’m here to
serve, baby.
The
State of My Fat Ass A journal of
sorts, updated every once in a while.
--
Toney's aunt died over the weekend, and she's leaving for Philadelphia
this afternoon to attend the wake and all associated activities. Her
sister is flying in for it as well, along with several of the Nevada
relatives. I liked her aunt and am sorry she's gone, I really am, but
I'm going to be on my own here for upwards of 24 hours.
This evening, for instance, I'll have to make arrangements for dinner,
which in my case means choosing a restaurant. Then, in the morning I'll
need to make sure I don't oversleep (Toney won't be there to prod my
back fat), make breakfast for the younglings, pack their lunches (good
God), get them to their schools on time, etc.
Too much responsibility.... And too many opportunities for a grand
screw-up. I'll probably get confused and deliver the oldest Secret to
the pre-school he attended in 2000. Or the Sunoco station, or the waste
treatment plant.
I voiced my concerns to Toney, but she's not being very understanding
about it. "I'm going to be attending a really sad funeral with a
roomful of grieving family members. I think you can manage to put turkey
and cheese between two slices of bread," she chuckled, simplifying
everything for comedic effect.
But we'll see who's laughing when she returns to find a real-life Steve
Martin movie being played out in our living room. The only thing missing
will be me standing in the doorway in a sweater, saying, "Don't
worry honey, everything will be fine here." Because I'm not so
foolish as to make such a statement, and I don't wear sweaters.
-- Speaking of the Secrets and Toney's sister..... We attended a really
exciting swim meet over the weekend. It was the championship and our
team not only won, but Secret the Elder kicked some serious butt-cheek.
He was in three races and came in first twice, and second once. I don't
know where he gets his natural swimming abilities, the deep-end makes me
kinda nervous, but he's really good and getting better every day. In
fact, if he doesn't win Most Improved Swimmer this year at the banquet,
I'm storming the podium.
The place was completely packed, and I had to stand for the entire meet;
there were literally no open seats, and the volume was insane.
Half-Shirt was there, as was the
Chinless Yankee. People were hollering and screaming like they were at a
football game, and I think they were actually doing the wave at one
point. Sure, the standing helped stave-off Phantom Ass Syndrome, but it
got a little old after about hour three. I had to self-medicate with
Reese's Peanut Butter Cup four-packs from the concession stand.
Anyway, it was a lot of fun and really
exciting. And when Toney told her sister about it the next day, she
climbed atop her high horse and launched a diatribe about competitive
sports. When one group of kids win, she said, it means another group of
kids loses, and that's nothing to celebrate. "Intense
competition" at such an early age is nothing more than
indoctrination into a capitalist society. By allowing our son to join
the swim team, she pontificated, we'd effectively enrolled him in
Corporate Greed Training 101.
Is that not excellent?
-- I talked to my brother on Sunday and he told me a great story that I
must relay to you now. It seems that a cousin of ours is joining the
Masonic Lodge, and needed to buy a suit for the big ceremony. You know,
where they stand with their head in a noose, one pants leg rolled up,
and their wiener out? Is that correct? I think so.
In any case, he wanted a new suit. And since he's a truck driver and on
the road most of the time, he had his wife do all the measurements and
take them to a tailor shop. Our cousin, it must be pointed out, is
giant. He's huge, probably somewhere between 300 and 400 pounds. But you
wouldn't look at him and say, "Wow, that guy's fat." Because
he's not really fat, just giant.
A few years ago I might've told you another story about this same
cousin. He supposedly had a bad coughing fit while driving once, blacked
out behind the wheel and jacknifed a tractor trailer full of hogs on the
West Virginia Turnpike. Or something along those lines.
But back to the suit.... A few days after his wife dropped the
measurements off at the shop, a man called her and said, "Ma'am,
are you sure these are correct?" She assured him they were, that
she'd done them herself and had been very careful. "Well, it's none
of my business," he responded, "But are you buying this suit
for an orangutan?"
This irritated my cousin's wife a bit, and she assured him it was for a
human being. "No offense," he said, "But we've had
customers order clothing for performing animals before. We sell a lot of
suits here, and I've simply never encountered a man with a 62-inch chest
and a 25-inch neck."
Performing animals. Heh.
-- And since a theme seems to be developing here, I'll close out the
category with even more News of Relatives....
My parents are in Florida for the winter (to paraphrase Jay Leno: they
didn't want to go, but it's the law) and my Mom said they were recently
eating lunch at a place called Sweet Tomatoes. Apparently it's one of
those massive salad bar kinda joints, like Souplantation and Lettuce
Souprise You.
There were two guys in front of her being really picky and taking a long
time. One of them turned to my mother and apologized, and said something
about the amount of food on his plate. My Mom said, "Oh, don't
worry about it. I raised two boys, and know how much you guys can
eat."
He answered, "Well, we're actually part boy and part
girl," then both started giggling like sixth graders. My mother
said she didn't know anything about that, she hadn't raised any hybrids.
And the guy shrieked, "That you know of!" before sashaying
away with his gayness salad.
Years ago I had something similar happen to me at the same kind of
place. I was at Lettuce Souprise You on North Druid Hills in Atlanta,
and the place was packed with Emory students. As I was walking to our
table a man pointed at me from across the room, and hollered, "I
know you! You're a Chattahoochee Dancer!!"
WTF??
I don't think Toney stopped laughing until sometime the next afternoon
following that episode. Just thought you should know.
That'll just about do it for today, my friends. Do you have an News of
Relatives you'd like to pass along? Use the comments link below to bring
us all up to date.
--
Toney's aunt died over the weekend, and she's leaving for Philadelphia
this afternoon to attend the wake and all associated activities. Her
sister is flying in for it as well, along with several of the Nevada
relatives. I liked her aunt and am sorry she's gone, I really am, but
I'm going to be on my own here for upwards of 24 hours.