Come All Ye There

I auditioned for the "Broadway in the Park" musical revue today and got in. I'll be doing "Everything's Coming Up Roses" from Gypsy and "Missing You" from The Civil War. Karaoke and other auditions aside, this is going to be my first time singing by myself in public, unless you count the four-word solo I had in Brigadoon in high school, which even I'd forgotten about until just now.

And Rachael Ray Shot JFK

I've never been particularly worried about things like Mad Cow Disease or e. coli outbreaks--probably because I'm no longer a carnivore--and at one time I had no qualms about eating an M&M off the ground under a loosely timed five-second rule. When I say that I've recently become paranoid about food and started calling conspiracy theory, it's a cause for serious concern.

*Adolescent vanity trained me to stringently track down the nutritional contents of everything that slides down my gullet. So naturally, when I became hooked on iced coffees at McDonalds, I went to their website and looked it up. A 32-ounce coffee has 250 calories. I didn't believe it for a second. Those things are sweeter than a debutante and have enough cream to make a heifer blush. Therefore, I believe the core of McDonalds' new nutrition-consciousness consists of lying about how bad the products are for the customers by falsifying the caloric and fat content. If I had a way of finding out the truth, I would sue them for millions of dollars, which would allow me to buy millions of delicious iced coffees.

*One of my friends got tricked into buying a pack of Limited Edition Retro Starburst. The kid at the Kum and Go counter said that he'd give my friend his more expensive coffee for free if he bought the candy because his boss said he "wasn't selling enough." Taking advantage of the deal, my friend agreed, only to find out later that there was a nationwide contest among Kum and Go employees to see who could sell the most Retro Starburst. Upon closer examination, I found the bite-sized taffy to come in four flavors: Psychedli-Melon (representing the sixties, I'm assuming), Disco Berry, Hey Mango-Rena (I shudder to think that's what the 1990's will be remembered for), and Optimus Lime. This "inadvertent" promotion coincides remarkably with the release of Transformers: The Movie --a little too well, I believe. Either the guy who gets paid to name the Starburst got geeked out on Mountain Dew and pop rocks when he received the project that he'd waited twenty years for, or the Transformers producers slipped him some bills under the table for some low-cost-yet-high-exposure promotion. I'm positive the film features Los Del Rio's acting debut as the Bee Gees, who operate a yellow submarine that morphs into a three-headed bone-crushing rainbow-bot. The prize package will be two tickets, a pair of platform shoes, and two tabs of acid.

*Water is supposed to make you not thirsty. It's also supposed to alleviate dehydration-related symptoms of a hangover such as nausea. In the past few weeks, I've found Kirksville water to do neither of these things. I believe the water "purification" plant is distilling our faucets with chemically fine-tuned crap to make the drinkers sluggish and sick, not only so they will want to consume more and turn a profit for water-related utilities and services, but to also sap the desire to emigrate from this Surrogate-Motherland and allow them to raise the aggregate I.Q. so we may finally have the cultural capacity to necessitate a Target store being built.

The Big Sister Tax

I inherited my mother's smile and her father's curly hair, but not her prowess for bargaining. My brother got that, and as a result my family would regularly try to out-scam each other.

She and I went shopping for a desk and bookshelf for my college apartment, and was able to effectively argue $40 off the price of both. She shows me her garage sale treasure trove when I visit, entertaining herself more than me with a rundown of what her trinkets had cost and what she actually paid for them. When I was younger, she would ask me to do random tasks for her. "I'll give you a dollar," she'd say. Tempted by pocket change in a time when I was too old for an allowance but too young for a summer job, I'd do it and report for pay. She'd dig through her purse, cock her head, search some more, and say, "Here's sixty cents. Seventy-five. It's all I can find."

"There's a roll of quarters in the side pocket."

"I need those for laundry. Most kids do these things without getting paid, you know."

I really couldn't argue with that. Clearly, I also inherited a gullible naivete that was unprecedented in either side of my parentage--as well as a strong, indignant sense of justice. Later, when I had a permit and she'd make me go on Taco Bell or McDonalds dinner runs for "driving practice," I'd keep a portion of the change and tell her the order was more expensive than it really was.

Where my mom uses charm, chatter, and pathos to get less than her money's worth on possessions, my brother is wily, hard-nosed, and underhandedly businesslike. He was able to buy a $1400 computer for less than half the price because he took advantage of the rebate, a friend's Best Buy discount, and my dad. He'd have "penny auctions" or sell his toys to me, and take them back later when he wanted to use them again. When we were older, he'd ask to borrow money, vowing to pay me back the next Tuesday. We'd write out an I.O.U., which I'd either lose, forget about, or remind him about it a few days later to a stream of more promises. I returned the favor by picking up all the loose change on his bedroom floor and keeping it.

On an overnight visit to my grandmother's house, I awoke to she and my mother talking about money. It was boring until I heard my name come up.

"I don't know what I should do. It's gotten so bad that I've had to take money out of Meredith's savings account again. I already had to take out two hundred dollars last month to pay the bills. I don't want it to get so far that I won't be able to pay it back without her noticing."

I was fifteen. I pretended to still be asleep. My grandmother offered her some sage, motherly, understanding musing that I didn't pay a speck of attention to because I couldn't get past the fact that our family was in financial trouble (though it was a fairly regualr occurrence) and my mom was stealing my money that I earned working thirty-nine hours a week at a job I despised. After we returned home, I mentioned that I wanted sole control of my savings account, but I chickened out when she asked why and got defensive. To her credit, she paid it back in full and I never noticed any missing at any other time. I wonder how desperate she really was.

When my brother was fifteen and going through a rough time with her, he accidentally ruined two towels with cheap hair dye. She told him she was going to take money out of his account to replace them, and he promptly closed it down and opened up a new one at another bank. My brother was never one to take injustice lying down either.

An Open Letter to People Who Leave Their Shopping Carts in Parking Spaces

Dear People Who Leave Their Shopping Carts in Parking Spaces,

Congratulations! Your tenacity and ingenuity have proven key in keeping the fight alive against major retail stores such as K-Mart, Kohls, and Garden Plus. When most of our other tactics have died out, you have continued to reinforce this decades-old battle with consistency and success, thus weakening their power and transferring it back to the hands of the people.

It sends thrills of unadulterated joy down my spine every time I enter the parking lot and see a stallwart metal buggy glimmering proudly between the yellow lines. The clever rebels choose their spaces carefully: near the front, to publicize the cause to the maximum amount of patrons entering and exiting the facility; in bold clusters occupying multiple spaces in a more open area, as strength lies in numbers; and concealed within a seemingly open space camouflaged on either side by a truck or SUV. The more carts that are sacrificed to the cause, the more resources and employers they will have to divert to free their lot of aluminum cholesterol. This will drain their funds, bankrupt their patience, and deprive the consumer of the friendly, down-home experience they want and deserve.

Every time another patron is driven to nervous prostration (please excuse the pun) from umpteen figure eights throughout the concrete labyrinth, it is one more customer that will utter, "Fuck it!" and illegally occupy a handicapped spot, earning a ticket and vendetta against that capitalist emporium. One more customer that will develop road rage so severe that they will feel the overwhelming desire to plow down shoppers more fortunate than they, involving the corporate cesspool in a potentially crippling lawsuit and deathly PR. One more customer that may say, "You know what? I don't really need to purchase my small-ticket goods at this establishment! Let's go to Mom and Pop's, where the slightly overinflated prices will offset the cost of gas we're wasting driving around this monolith!"

Now is the time to stand strong! Do not let naysayers, busybodies, and the overzealous rule-enforcers deter you; they are but blind puppets of the larger institution! When confronted with one of these conservative tools, employ one or more of the following excuses to throw them off the trail and keep the dream alive:

It is essential that we must all hang together in our cause. Together, we can stick it to those bastards who sell toothpaste cheaper than any of our proud local stores and who give our red-blooded Christian jobs to those bums overseas.

Red Bull for the Cure

The first thing I'd noticed about my dad's apartment when I got into St. Louis on Friday night was how clean it had gotten since my brother moved out. I remembered him telling me about it a few weeks before.

"Hey, remember all the grime and stuff that was on the faucet in the bathroom, and all the coffee stains that were on the kitchen walls? I cleaned it. I got back from the Race for the Sight at Union Station, and I was like, 'Ew, this has gotten really bad,' so I started cleaning the bathroom sink, and then the rest of the bathroom, and then the kitchen, and then four hours later I was done with it."

My mom cleans regularly to entertain herself. My dad does it on a whim after a charity race.

I sat in a chair while he continued pumping up the air mattress for me. He wore a t-shirt from a run for Polycystic Kidney Disorder. A decorative rug with dogs playing poker hung on the wall, partially covering the door to the garden in his closet. The Eco-Gro light was on and the fan on the closet floor made the reflective sheets of plastic that lined it flicker, creating my dad's version of the crackling hearth underneath the stately heirloom tapestry. There were trays and rollers on the newly-uncarpeted hardwood floor, left over from when he was experimenting with what to paint on the walls. At the time, he had a yellow branch with fuzzy black leaves springing from the twigs. It was a third attempt.

We pinned the numbers on the backs of our T-shirts for the Komen Race for the Cure so we wouldn't have to mess with them the next morning. With the shirts and numbers were pink pieces of paper saying, "I Run in Memory of______." Neither one of us knew anyone who had died of cancer. Dad said that he'd always done it for the chicks.

The next morning, we got a Red Bull for me at a gas station before heading downtown. He didn't want one, though last year he did because he'd given blood two days before the race. We munched on pieces of Mad Croc Energy Gum before I spit mine out after five minutes because it began tasting like crocodile-flavored vomit. Most of the time, we were next to an older man who was constantly coaching and encouraging his wife---or it could have been daughter. "You're doing great, keep it up. We can stop anytime you want. You're doing just fine, keep on running. Only a mile more; you can do this."

Our time was three minutes slower than last year, which I attributed to the lack of Red Bull in my dad's system. It gives you wings, you know.

We ate at St. Louis Bread Company after cleaning up, where my dad told me about his idea for a mint-chocolate cereal, then remembered a mint-flavored water he wanted me to try. We got bottles of that before getting my car tuned up, washed, and full of gas. I left St. Louis with two more cans of Red Bull and the air mattress that I slept on. The race is always around Father's Day. I want to be able to run it with him every year.

I wish I were Paris Hilton's lawyer

When I'm bombarded with enough repetitive, Captain-Obvious annoyance, I can be driven to play devil's advocate to almost any issue. With that in mind, let me be the first to say that I really, really don't mind Paris Hilton. I think she's amusing. No, she's not the brightest shirt on the rack, but sometimes one's entertainment value lies in asinine comments and not the ability to save a power plant from a meltdown. This, I'm sure, is why The Simpsons was so popular.

Or you could say that she is a waste of space/resources/oxygen/time and she does nothing but talk on her cell phone and shop. First of all, I can't begin to name all the perfectly nice people I know who spend hours at a time every day sitting on their asses to watch television or play video games. Secondly, if I could figure out how to market my name and image in such a way to profit from a ghostwritten book, poorly-acted bit parts in forgettable movies, and an overly-engineered self-titled CD (and, come to think of it, a fragrance as well), I would. That takes smarts and strategy. Sure, I'd rather be famous for curing cancer, but you work with what you have and what you want to do with your time. And say what you want about her behavior; whether she's a spoiled brat or sweet and friendly, the opinions are split down the middle, but if you grew up in that environment with that amount of money, you would act the exact same way. Yes, you would. Don't kid yourself.

Concerning her trying to weasel out of her jail sentence, I have but this to say: Do you want to go to jail? No, I didn't think so. How about for 45 days? Didn't think so. Or 23--would you like to spend three weeks away from your family, friends, home, privacy, freedom, and Internet in a bare room with a bed and toilet? Yeah--didn't think so. And you don't have to feel shallow or ignoble, because no one actually wants to go to jail. It's boring and the food sucks. Honestly, you can't blame a girl for trying.

This is not, by the way, condoing what she did. Driving under the influence is a horrible, dangerous, stupid thing to do and is never excusable under any circumstances. Especially when you're on probation from doing it once already, and most especially when you're loaded enough (in more ways than one) to have access to a chauffer. I also applaud the judge for sticking to his guns and making her go back to jail instead of letting her stay on house arrest. The law is the law, even when the law is something as ridiculous as giving inmates time off for every day they serve.

To her credit, she's not going to appeal the case any further, and yes, she probably should have just done the time and kept her mouth shut. Lil' Kim was sentenced ten months for perjury last year, took it like a woman, and recorded a successful album when she got out. I think we can all learn a little something from Lil' Kim.

Instead of being angry over Paris getting off easier, people should divert their ire to the flaws in the California jail and legal system for allowing her to do so, because the next time they get nailed for a stupid mistake, they're going to try to get away from it with the smallest amount of punishment or ramification. Even if they suck it up and take it, they may feel bad for having done it, but there's still the part of them that's going to wish they'd gotten away with it. I can say with some confidence that Paris doesn't want to go to jail any more than anyone else, so she's trying to evade responsibility just as much as every other red-blooded American would, too.

Hypochlorus Acid and Old Ladies

"So, Meredith, how's lifeguarding at the pool?"

It's easy. It's really, really easy, almost embarassingly so, and despite that I enjoy it. I think the hardest parts are getting up to be there at 5:45 AM and working the paleozoic cash register, which prints in purple ink and requires a key to turn on.

Every half hour I trade off guarding the indoor pool with Paul, a man in his sixties who reminds me of Hoo-Lan from My Teacher Glows in the Dark--in that he's about ear-level with me, not that he has blue skin. He is disarmingly friendly and drives a white scooter with "Roberta" on the license plate. The only people that come in that early are the swim team members that are training in the off-season and a gaggle of old women who slowly bob from one end of the pool to the other and talk about their gardens, recipes, and rashes. When I'm not guarding, I push a button on the register when people come in with their passes.

Open swim ends at 9, at which time the sixteen-year-old girl from La Plata who I work with, and myself, do "chores." I would have called it "pool maintenance" or something official-sounding like that, but she called it "chores" the first day and I thought it was cute, so "chores" it will remain. Today, I can say with pride that I have officially swabbed a deck--i.e, I sprayed a bleach mix on the deck of the pool, scrubbed with a broom, and then she hosed it off. I water plants. I wash windows. I also get to operate Carl, who is a remote-control robot that vacuums the bottoms of the pools. It's just as cool as it sounds--like driving a toy car, only for a purpose. They should market these things for kids to clean house with.

Chores end at 10:00 when the Arthritic Old Lady Class comes in. They stand in a circle in the pool and rotate their joints while talking about their gardens, recipes, and rashes. I trade off every half hour with the other girl and read in the first aid room when I'm not guarding. Knocking wood, no one in there will probably ever need rescuing. I'm officially done at 12, but they usually let me go about twenty minutes beforehand.

That's pretty much it. Even if I'm requested to do an awkward task, such as playing games at the Hunger Awareness Day Weiner Roast with children that had no interest in games, it only ends up in getting paid for standing around uncertainly for two hours while drinking free soda, getting my face painted, and talking to Amber and Jared, who were also recruited for the same purpose. On the flip side, this is probably the extent of any interesting stories.

Chill-ism Out-ism

Two days ago, I did something I wasn't too proud of.

I was looking for a parking spot next to my apartment. There's no lot, just a concrete strip next to the complex. The white lines dividing the spaces are nearly invisible, so no one pays attention to them, often rendering it difficult to find a spot. Especially when a sassy red car parks with their front bumper three feet from the curb, with enough space on either side to be obnoxious, but not enough to actually squeeze in a car. So I parked, wrote "Quit parking like an asshole" on a piece of paper, tucked it under their windshield wiper, brought my bags inside, and felt like a grade-A bitch.

I know it's important to stand up for yourself, and it's perfectly healthy to get frustrated or angry from time to time. A friend of mine and I even had a good cathartic laugh over a similar note he left on an SUV in St. Louis that was parked so closely we could barely breathe. But when I thought about it, even though it was a little thing, what I did seemed rude and unecessary. It's not like I wasn't able to find a place---I ended up parking about five spaces away. It didn't hurt me, it's not my place to cut people down if they're not following the rules, and I know I'd feel terrible if someone left something like that on my car.

A lady came into JavaCo a couple months ago and got a drink and a cookie. She said, "I'd get a latte, but I'm from Seattle, and they don't make them as good anywhere else."

"Well, our lattes are pretty good--" I started.

"No, you really can't get a good latte outside of Seattle, I know this." She smiled and thanked me when I handed her the coffee, and left. I walked back to the food area where Patrick was cutting carrots and started ranting about what a pretentious bitch she was, and how could the lattes possibly be that different anywhere else? He listened thoughtfully, then said, "Well, I'm sure she'd be really hurt if she heard you call her a bitch, but yeah, that sounds a little close-minded."

He had a very good, true, and humbling point. You're not a bitch for having an opinion, and for all I know, it could be true; I've never been to Seattle or tasted their liquid gold lattes. And even I will always firmly believe that fish and chips are far inferior outside of Scotland.

The next time I get mildly offended, I'll probably shrug, ignore it, and try to be the bigger person. Maybe laugh a little, and not harbor a grudge or talk behind their back. It wasn't worth it. Not to say I won't defend myself when it's personal or directly affects me--but to not go out of my way when it doesn't.

So I'm sorry, Owner of Sassy Red Car. What I did was uncalled for.

Just don't make it personal.