What I've learned from M*A*S*H

I remember (ever so vaguely) when I was a kid hearing the now familiar strains of the wordless version of "Suicide Is Painless." I'd be trotting upstairs to bed or whatever and hear my dad downstairs tuning into a show that I knew was about war, but never realized was a comedy. Until about 10 years ago when they started showing episodes on the Hallmark Channel in threes or fours after 10pm. Then, I'd use it to fall asleep. But wait, it's a comedy?? Heh, it's not so bad.

And so I'm hooked. I spent WAY too much money on the full series collection (plus movie) and occasionally I'll get the hankerin' to watch it...for the bajillionth time.

I was just watching another episode this morning and it occurred to me I've discovered a few things about the show that you might not realize were there, stored in the scary parts of my brain...

• Korea looks strangely like California.
• Now I know what a "merry widow" is.
• Now I know who Adolphe Menjou is.
• Hitler had a pencil box and it was in Korea, CA being hocked by a local indigenous personnel.
• Now I know where "I'm not so drunk as you think I am" came from.
• Same for "Why don't you let that cut under your nose heal?"
• The C.O.'s office had dirty, dirty windows most of the time. In the cold, it changed to frost.
• Colonel Potter got a male horse (gelding, stallion, whatever, I didn't look that close), but after the first episode where Radar gave it to him, "he" was thereafter named "Sophie."
• Henry Blake's wife's name was originally Mildred, later Lorraine.
• Colonel Potter's wife's name was originally Mildred and stayed that way.
• Acting newbs such as John Ritter, Patrick Swayze, Alex Karras, Richard Masur, Teri Garr, Andrew "Dice" Clay, Ron Howard, and Laurence Fishburne have had guest appearances. There are likely more, but I'm only on season four and can't store all the useless info in the world. Loudon Wainwright III appeared in a handful of episodes as well, decidedly new at his gig as guitar-carrying minstrel. I'm not sure if he's gotten any better at it, I haven't heard word of him since the M*A*S*H eps. Honestly, based off his performances in M*A*S*H, I don't care either.
  
• There was a place in Chicago near the Dearborn Street Station called Adam's Ribs. But there probably wasn't.
• Surplus items from World War II were not unheard of. Beans? From 1943? In the 50's? Ish.
  

"America is a land of taxation that was founded to avoid taxation." -- Dr. Laurence J. Peter

Trish got me started again...

Creative Taxation I'd Like To See In the World:

I'm a fan of air quotes, but I'd like to tax the inefficient use of them.

I'd like to tax people who pay for commercials and billboard advertisements but don't proofread them first (btw, Love, it's "voila"...there's an accent on it too, I think, but I'm too lazy to try to figure out how to Hyper-text Markup Language it).

Trish wanted to tax people who use acronyms. I was once berated by my ex-boyfriend for using acronyms in conversation. DQ, BK, McD's. Apparently my acronyms used to only involve fast food joints. I've branched out since then. I guess I'd probably be taxed for this, but you won't witness me saying "Oh em jee" in a person-to-person conversation, unless I'm using air quotes. :0)

Let's tax companies that come up with misspelled words and/or mush words together with a capital letter separating the two for their businesses and products. Xtreme, YouTube, NetFlix, Facebook, GoDaddy, Xcel Energy, Bancorp, Xtreem...Xtreem? Really?

Extreme and the various spellings of it should be taxed all to hell.

People on scooters who think it's okay to park on my sidewalk five feet from my front door.

Smart Car owners.

Manufacturers who skimp on the tips of their cotton swabs.

Companies who send their bills with extra b.s. in the envelope.

Anything "As Seen On TV."

The person who invented reality TV.

The people responsible for over-hyping global warming.

Manufacturers who sell "green" bulbs with mercury in them.

The government for playing "Over-Protective Parent."

Whoever keeps swapping out my socks for hangers.

Reintarnation

I don't use the bathroom much at work. It's not that it's skanky or anything, I just kinda don't stop to go. Get it? So on the rare day when I have one too many Dr. Peppers or the lunch went in sideways, I'm in there, staring at the little radiator thingy on the wall near the floor and I take stock of the frequent inhabitants, i.e. spiders. I don't know what the deal is. We aren't surrounded by woods at the shop. It's in the middle of an industrial park, but the spiders that somehow get in are radioactively enhanced. The kind of spiders you see on a boat as the sun sets, or the kind that thrive in the forests. Big, meaty spiders. And for some reason, they set up shop in the floor heater of the women's bathroom.

Normally, it doesn't bother me because if I do happen to need to use the facilities, there's really never any activity. Just evidence. And once, as I was staring at the carcass of a recently departed insect, I thought to myself, "What's it like to come back in the next life as a bug?" I haven't looked into this too much, but I thought that Buddhists believe that reincarnation is a series of evolutions toward enlightenment. Meaning, you come back as a new being in each life, correcting your past karmic errors until you achieve perfection of being. I might not be correct on that, but that's how I remember it. So, coming back as a bug. You'd live, like, a day. In the grand scheme of the Universe, human lives are but a blink of a cosmic eye. Imagine the nanosecond life of an insect. Eat, poop, make more of you, die. Short, without complications, hobbies, money, likely not even enough mind to experience the shock and horror of such a brief existence.

I don't think I'd mind coming back as a bug...as long as it counted, anyway, due to its sucky nature. Dung beetles should get to knock off credit for two lives. I don't think I need to explain why.

NO MORE WIRE HANGERS!

My mom was the only one of my MILLIONS of readers (read: two) who braved up and sent me answers to the questions I posted up a while back.

1. What is the one thing you would have done differently as a mom?

Had I been more mature and well-adjusted, less neurotic and unaware of my own dysfunction, I would have given my children much more of my attention. I would have realized that they grow up way too fast and you don't get a second chance. I would have given them more love and understanding. I would have looked into their eyes and really listened. I would still have been a strong disciplinarian but not with physical force. I would have cherished every moment that they were children so that now I would have more of those memories instead of the memories of my own bullshit. I would be the parent instead of one of the children.

2. Why did you choose to be with my father?

He was clean-cut when the rest of the men I met were hippies. He was more or less drug-free, not an alcoholic, not promiscuous, had no STDs. He came from a good family and had a trade which was very important at that time, more so than a college education. He was honest and responsible.

3. In what ways do you think I'm like you? And not like you?

I think you are like me in your level of intelligence but far surpass me in maturity relative to our ages. I think you have filters, that you usually think before you speak which is not like me but more like your dad. I believe you have close to the same sense of humor I have. You are less guilt-driven; you are more likely to know what you want and less likely to be influenced by the wishes of others. You share my love (NOT) of physical exercise. You are able to read and enjoy reading unlike the males in the family.

4. Which one of us kids did you like the best?

What a question! I know it may have seemed at times that I liked Tom the best. The truth is that he was easier for me to relate to and raise. Much simpler and more straight-forward. Letting a boy go off riding a dirt bike seemed much less worrisome than letting a girl go off in a car full of boys. Obviously, the fact that you were so much more a match for me intellectually made you more challenging to control. I never really felt like I knew what was going on in your mind, whereas with Tom, I believed it was always about toys, vehicles and speed. If we were reliving the past at this time in the world I would never expect Tom to put antifreeze in my Kool-Aid, while I might be a little more suspicious of the workings of your mind.

5. Is there anything you have always wanted to tell me but never have?

Not that I can think of, I think I've probably spilled my guts maybe more than I should have at times.

6. Do you think it's easier or harder to be a mother now than when you were raising our family?

Hell no. I was aware of crimes against children back then, as I was even when I was a child myself. They were usually such news, though, because they weren't happening on an hourly basis like they seem to now. I could let you go out and play in the neighborhood without being there to monitor you and didn't have to worry that you might not come back. We weren't worried about guns in school or drugs, at least not until high school. There seem to be more diseases now, more dangers in general. If you cut yourself we didn't have to wonder if flesh-eating bacteria would kill you. And there was no thought of how parents' behavior could/would affect you emotionally in childhood or as adults so it was pretty much that we were free to [do] what we wanted.

7. Is there anything you regret not having asked your parents?

I would like to know more family history. Mostly this is because I have a box of jewelry that includes a couple of lockets with photos and I don't know who the people are.

8. What's the best thing I can do for you right now?

Keep in touch. Answer the emails. Post to the blog, even if it's just stuff you did that you thought was boring. Carry your camera and use it.

9. Is there anything that you wish had been different between us--or that you would still like to change?

I wish the past had been vastly different as explained above. Nothing I would change now except the physical distance between where we live.

10. When did you realize you were no longer a child?

Not yet.

Well done, Momma. Though I have to tell you, I bet most of the people who know me think I turned out just fine. Not sure about Brother, though. ;0)

Momma's Day

I love my Momma. She is my best friend, my mentor, my comic relief, my nurse, my conscience, my rock, my hero. Momma, I hope that your special day is exceptional. Though we live far apart, you are never more than a thought away. :)

Vern, My Muse

I've struck up an entertaining back and forth with one of our customers based in Fort Collins, Co. Sometimes people don't realize what spark they light in the cockles of my brain. My friend on the West Sigh-eed brightens my day with his friendly, pointy wit and the odd pop-culture speak we share. Recently we were sending emails with Latin phrases in the subject line, until he actually pieced one together, thwarting my easy Latin-to-English Googling. Here's a sampling of an email I started and realized it made a better post.

"We've finally got sun today after clouds and rain the better part of the week. I've got a screamer of a headache and I think it's this smelly-ass perfume I'm sampling. I smell like a half-dead old lady. That discussion we had about smells that make you sick? As far as perfume is concerned, instead of sucking you in with an initial lovely scent when dabbed at the neck and wrists, if a scent has the potential for making you ill later on in the day, someone should manufacture some kind of chemical reaction that causes it to smell like fart or rotting corpse upon instant contact with skin. Then you'd know and it would save you giving yourself a whore's bath in the sink at work. Because you KNOW my boss's brain is reeling away trying to figure out why the tips of my hair are wet after I've exited the bathroom.

Also, I should refrain from shaking hands with anyone this weekend. I know, you're thinking I'm wary of swine flu. I'm really not. It's just that my brother's girlfriend took it upon herself (a nice thoughtful thing to do) to purchase poo tickets for the household and somehow managed to find ONE-PLY. I'm not one for ripping through the RPMs when unrolling the T.P., but, since I'm a wadder, I'm fairly sure that's twice as much coming off the roll so as to further distance myself.

Yes, WAY more than you could possibly ever want to know. Meh. I figure, we're both human, we both excrete, along with everything else. Hey, wouldn't it be fun if we were like plants and just expelled a gas instead of dropping the kids off at the pool? Think of the chunk of the planet we'd save. We could all start peeing around the yard like the pets (except for the winter)..."