The Skeeter Daddle Diaries

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So a duck walks into a drugstore, picks up a box of Trojans and walks to the counter with it under his wing. The pharmacist rings up his purchase and asks, ‘you want me to put this on your bill?’ The duck, aghast, quacks, ‘I’m not that kind of duck!!’

So I’m walking into my own local drugstore and this kid and his girlfriend are palavering in the aisle I’m walking by. She’s crowbarred into torn designer jeans that must cost a hundred bucks and he looks like he shops Goodwill. ‘How would I know where to find them?’ she asks the boy, ‘I don’t shop here.’ At which point I leave eavesdropping range, get what I came for and head back up to the checkout line. The girlfriend is waiting some ways away, but says, loud enough for everyone to hear, ‘I’m not going to stand there too. You can do it by yourself.’

I queue up with the lad who has a package of Trojan condoms in his mitt and we’re behind two elderly ladies who are waiting for their turn at the register. It becomes a long wait, but finally the two women move to their respective registers and finally I say to the kid, “ya know …

when I was about your age I went into a pharmacy to buy prophylactics for the first time. You had to ask the pharmacist for them back then, didn’t want to leave them out for the prurient public. I was a little nervous, being a kid, so I asked the druggist for Trojans, just like you got right there, and the guy asks, ‘what size?’ Geez, what size? Not something I counted on, I guess figuring one size fits all or something, but finally I mumble, ‘I don’t know, mediums, I guess.’ ‘Naw,’ he says, ‘what size box, a dozen or what?’

I’m sure the guy pulled that on every underage kid who bought his first condoms from that store, probably howled with his buddies every time too.” My kid gives out a nervous little chuckle, not quite sure what to make of this old geezer telling his story, but he’s saved when the counterguy says Next. On the way out of the store, reunited with his girlfriend, I’m wondering if he’ll maybe tell her he bought the condoms but forgot to check what size, see maybe if she’d fall for it. Naw, I think maybe he had other things on his mind….

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Good show, what? The Yank wanker has brought his entourage to the Kingdom and to make certain the Brits understand who it is they’ve invited, he immediately weighs in on their Brexit malaise, insults the mayor of London as a ‘stone cold loser’ and calls one of the Royals ‘nasty’. Fleet Street might get away with calling a Royal names, but not so much a foreigner, it’s a family perk, you understand. Trump, despite a recording anyone with a computer can punch up for a corroborating visual, denies ever saying what he actually said. Fake news. Monty Python, where are you when you’re needed.

Welcome to the island, Guvner! As an ugly American, what better ambassador of ill will? What cringe-worthy moments for our emancipated colony? All that fuss over a tax on tea only to arrive two and a half centuries later with a fop for a president? A Shakespeare might do justice to this comedy, but us moderns, not so much. Maybe when the dust clears and the court jester sums up the insanity of these past years, we can find the humor and the pathos in a 5 season Netflix production: Trump Tower, loosely based on Fawlty Tower and actual people.

Trump the Lion Hearted, not so much an English king version, maybe more of a Wizard of Oz lion, the one nervously chewing his tail. The Queen refused to let the American couple sleep in Buckingham Palace, something about remodeling difficulties, more probably concerns about grabbing the privates of the Downstairs maid staff. The poor Brits, lost in the woods of a no deal exit from the EU, now host to Bannon’s boss with a penchant for lack of manners, morals and common sense. Stirs the national mood with a fork, not a teaspoon.

Oh King George, why did you surrender back in 1783? They were ragtag ignorant woodsmen and potato farmers, after all, rude and backward, now they’ve made a clown their prince. That shot heard round the world is become a string of petty nasty insults. Hail to the Fool! Long Live the King!

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The vigilantes are at it again, those pesky little rifle-toting ruffians. They erected half a mile of border wall down there in New Mexico funded by donations and helped by good ol’ boy Stevie Bannon, no permits, no problem, just waited til a long Memorial Day weekend then slapped it up. Some of the same folks who feel called upon to patrol the desert regions with rifles and their own posse. Patriots.

Now, in full disclosure, I’ve been known to ignore building permits myself. In even fuller disclosure, mostly I try to ignore building permits and suchlike, not sure I have a real good reason other than plain orneriness, probably not much of a justification, but there you are. Course, I don’t build on other folks’ properties and I don’t take into my own hands to build walls where I’d like to see one even if others don’t. I mean, I could put up a border crossing barrier at the bridge onto the island, maybe keep the traffic down a bit and slow the population boom. Make me happy if not the realtors and the commuters trying to make it back home after work. Just saying.

I lived a couple years in Northern Wisconsin with the Posse Comitatus as neighbors. Nice folks, the Posse. Gun toting freedom lovers. They had some pretty hard notions what counted as patriotism. At least for white folks. And folks as religious as they claimed to be, which, between you and me, wasn’t much. Sure they wouldn’t like Mexicans. Or Muslims. Probably wouldn’t care to sit next to a Canadian either, but they might be fooled, thinking they were just ordinary folks, not snow-crazed liberals or whacky Francophiles. Truth is, they didn’t like hardly anybody who wasn’t them or close family. Some people just have poison running through their veins, I don’t pretend to know why.

These cowboys down in New Mexico, same breed. Full of piss and vinegar, full of themselves, full of anger, plenty full of righteousness. Scary folks, for sure, and nothing I’d care to tolerate. But if it’s a wall they want, I say let’s build one around the White House, hammer it up while Trump is watching Fox and Friends with the volume up loud, explain next morning we just wanted to keep his enemies out, not him in. I think that makes sense and I’m sure he will too. You want to help, I’m taking donations. Thanks for your help.

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I’m probably a lot like you, hoping someday to climb Mt. Everest. Because it’s there…. Or maybe because I’m willing to risk my life to ascend to those heights others only dream about, willing to camp in veritable trash dumps down below before being guided by Sherpas carrying my oxygen and food and gear past the dead bodies of my fellow adventurers who didn’t quite achieve their goal. Danger is our middle name, mountaineering is our game.

Sure, I’ve been seeing those photos of a snaking line of colorful parkas clambering toward the summit of Everest toe to heel, looks like a movie line-up around the block to get into the last episode, the prequel to the sequel, of Star Wars playing in Antarctica, everybody roped together for that final Push, probably not much time to snap a photo or leave a flag, just turn around and try to slip past the others still climbing. ‘Scuse me, ‘scuse me, coming through here.

I guess we’ll need some extra oxygen, maybe a few more packets of freeze dried food, probably another Sherpa. Kinda wish there was a Himalayan maître d we could tip to get a better spot in the line, something near the front preferably, slip a few grand into his fleece lined pocket, just one more expense on top of the tens of thousands already paid for climbing fees, tour guides, expedition expenses, etc. Next year we can hit the safari circuit, add a stuffed lion to our trophy case alongside the photo from the summit, great cocktail bragging rights. “Yeah, 11 dead climbers we had to step over to reach the peak, but nobody said it would be easy. Did it bother me? No, ma’am, kinda focused on the goal. Can I get you another martini? Brought the ice back from Nepal. What? No, just kidding. A little joke we mountaineers have for you Flatlanders. Wait, where you going?”

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I must be the only person on the planet who hasn’t gotten addicted to Game of Thrones. I ask myself: what is wrong with me? Why can’t I dedicate a few hundred hours to a series about war and mayhem, rape and Dragons? Have I grown up? Is that the problem? Or do I just not know what I’m missing? If the season finale rates right up there in ‘news’ viewers’ interest with Trump’s odd little dealings with Deutsch Bank, who am I to be disdainful of the show. Ya gotta do something with those boring evenings.

I mean, if folks care as much as they do about a Starbuck’s coffee cup peeking out of the background and now a water bottle, for godsake, visible to the eagle-eyed viewers of this week’s final episode, and cry foul, foul! for such an egregious mistake on a show that costs about 15 million dollars an episode (equivalent to about 5 million Starbucks coffees as long as we’re immersed in trivia), then we might have a lot to worry about this coming election whether the star of The Apprentice gets fired or not. Just saying.

I admit, I never played Dungeons or Dragons. I gave up on Star Wars about episode 2 when it seemed like adolescent pulp. I couldn’t even watch the 3rd episode of the Lord of the Rings after about an hour of computer generated mayhem in the 2nd episode. I think my English major background ruined me, I really do. I like literature more than comic books. At least when I reached the ripe old age of 11 or 12. I think movies ought to be thought provoking, not just entertainment. I know, I should get counseling. I live in the wrong country. The wrong era. The wrong place and time. But would counseling really help?

That coffee cup misplaced in the Game, maybe I’m being too judgemental. Maybe I should write to the anal compulsive who gleaned that mistake from the midst of elaborate sets and thank him. He ruined the series for folks who wanted a break from their banal reality. He called their attention to it. He was the moral equivalent of a person who blabs the ending in an intentional spoiler. I may have to watch the Games on rerun. Just to see if I can spot the Starbucks. What else do I have to do that’s better?

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