You Don't Know Neti

"You need a NetiPot" Thomas said, smugly, through his upended beer. "It'll fix you right up. Yup, I swear by the NettiPot." He saw my quizzical expression and smiled. "What. You don't know NetiPot? Tell him, Seth." He gestured in Seth's general direction with an elbow and tipped his beer up once again.

Seth began with "Well. Its like this. No, actually - let me see. Its kind of like this thing that you put water in. Hold on, let me back up - before you put water in it, you kind of pour this stuff in there and mix it around....." then he trailed gently off, scratched for a bit, and said: "Well, basically, it's like a little teapot."

"YOU POUR SALTWATER IN IT AND RINSE OUT YOUR NOSE" Thomas interjected.

"Right, thats what I said - its like a little teapot" said Seth.

"So, its like a nasal douche then" I said.

"Hahahahhahahaa!!! You said 'douche' " they both chortled.

I let it go.

Still confused, I swung by Walgreens for a mysterious NetiPot to find that it is, indeed, a little blue tea kettle with little white packets of saltstuff to mix in it. Once mixed with warm water, you pour the whole thing straight in one nostril, and it comes straight out the other.

How it knows to do that, I don't know (I would have anticipated it would come back out the SAME nostril) but I do know that I spent 15 minutes furiously dogpaddling air to avoid drowning upright in my bathroom last night. I finally decided I might rather just have the sinus infection than slowly kill myself with tiny packets of saltwater. Too late though; because now I'm afraid I managed to flush whatever was in my sinuses straight out into my ear holes.

Whenever I tilt my head I hear the ocean.

The Gridlock Who Stole Christmas

Well, you heard it here first: its officially the holidays. I know that, not because Tyler has been gleefully chirping Christmas tunes for 6 weeks, but because my traffic tolerance gauge has just shattered. The holidays don't have to be this painful. I have a deep-seated sense of hope in my heart that says it could be a gridlock-free Christmas if we just work together.

I got stuck behind a teal green Eagle Talon (seriously, theres one left) today for so long I finally just got off the interstate and followed him around for a bit. Our trip terminated, naturally, at Perimeter Mall approximately 12 minutes later than it should have.

Congratulations! You, Sir, are an idiot.

We have the INTERNET , Sir!! UPS will bring all that stuff STRAIGHT TO YOUR HOUSE. Seriously, they will; its not an urban legend. You've got a measuring tape and you can figure out exactly how fat you are, so you don't really have to go to the mall anymore for a salesperson to tell you - and ou're probably a whole lot dumber than me if you do. Shell out 7% sales tax in my home state though; I'm fine with it - down here we call that "revenues." I'm also fine with you being dumber than me, in general, as long as it doesn't put your dumb, unprincipled, butt dragging aimlessly down the left lane at 25 mph. You (all of you) should never, ever, ever, ever, ever, EVER be in the left lane. J U S T D O N T D O I T. Don't even "pass" in the left lane. You clearly can't handle the responsibility.

Also, you don't have to leave the house to pick your nose - you can do that in the privacy of your very own home anytime you like with no public repercussions....I'm just saying....think about it.

Live Long

Tyler loves to cook "healthy", so, we're about to have a big fight about forcing normal non-vegetarian people to eat vegetarian. I can feel it coming. I know vegetarian is healthy and I don't care that its healthy.

IF I wanted to live to be 819 years old I'd eat Tylers nasty black bean soy crust veggie broccoli spaghetti squash nuggets all day long until my skin glows greenish yellow and cows start migrating through my front yard attracted to the luscious veggie scent; but I DON'T.

I want to live to be about 80, then on the night my grown-up children gang up on me and take my driver's license; I want to drive (illegally) to Slopes in my boxer shorts for a big slab of take-out ribs, watch Ferris Bueller's Day Off and The Blues Brothers for the last time while I eat, go to sleep, and keel over dead with a massive pork-induced heart attack.

But thats fine Tyler. If you want to cook vegetarian all the time - fine. I'll eat it with a smile on my face and a joyful heart. Then, each time you make me eat a vegan meal - I'm going to finish up the last crumb of asparagus-braised-imitation-veggie-crabmeat, push my chair back, and smoke a whole cigarette.

American Cinema Is Dead

I hate to break it to all you mealy-mouthed movie nerds out there, but I went to see the Twilight series' latest cinematic scab on humanity Sunday afternoon and i.t. w.a.s. a.w.f.u.l.; I mean: AWFUL.

I couldn't WAIT to get out of there. I figured if I could get her up and moving I could distract her with my antics until we were out the door of the theater, so I looked at Tyler about 20 minutes in and said "don't you have to pee?" with a pleading gaze.

"Not yet" she said.

Of course the one time in my life her Tylenol-caplet-sized bladder WOULD work to my advantage; she's perfectly continent and I'm stuck with an empty bag of popcorn and half a white cherry icee for two more hours.

If you haven't seen this two-and-a-half-hour blighted desert of acting talent, you owe yourself a trip just so you can appreciate how wonderfully terrible it really is. I'd love to go back with some friends, stand up, and scream throughout each awkward, longing, silence. I'd be hoarse by the end, I know that much. It was so fraught with constipated silences it was like watching a silent film learn how to talk.

Also, Edward either gets his butt kicked, or ends up in a standoff everytime he's not gasping out awkward sentence fragments. WHAT IN THE WORLD? Our vampire hero is an average-sized, fairly weak, stutterer who apparently can't have sex or speak in full sentences; and he may or may not be a real vampire. Great.

C'mon. Somebody needs to procreate in one of these movies sometime soon or the entire 15-year-old "Twilight 3" opening night audience is going to spontaneously impregnate.

And what about some she-wolves, eh? I'm definitely going to Twilight 3 just so I can vent my cinematic spleen later, but if I see another pubescent werewolf skin off his shirt for no reason without at least baring his fangs at a she-wolf, I'm going to puke. 6 half-naked guys wandering around in the West-coast woods with no female creatures to be seen is the start of a gay porn, not a good vampire flick.

I give the entire franchise two middle fingers way, way up.

It's Electric

I was recently quite surprised and intrigued to hear that a lovely young friend of mine had moved to a farm out West - just up and moved states like it was nothing.

Shocking.

She moved States; not houses, apartments, or even cities - STATES. One day she's in Utah, the next she's parked on the shoulder looking at a map of California in a Honda Civic loaded with clothes, skis and a frying pan.

Things are different out there.

I was further surprised to learn that her NEW home (described as a "cabin") has no electicity. My first question was: "did your first house HAVE electricity?" She gave me a blank look and said "Of course Jimmy! Gah!"

My mistake.

Generally, I think of people with no electricity GETTING electricty, not the other way around; but what do I know? I never went to highschool.

I do know that "no electricity" means when you flip a light switch - exactly nothing happens. The cable is always out. The internet is always down. The hairdryer never blows hot enough. In short: N.O. E.L.E.C.T.R.I.C.I.T.Y.

Don't have the right converter for your ipod? No problem. Carve whatever you want into the log wall and plug it right in - its all the same. If you want to catch Dexter on Sunday nights you have to drive 2hrs to a town, wander around until you spot a house with a tv tuned to Dexter, and watch it through their living room window.

I hope you're a lipreader, but even so: popcorn popped on top of a hot muffler does not remind me of my childhood.

Thinking on my feet, the only thing I could reasonably respond to her bit of news was "Oh. Well. how much marijuana" are you growing?" in a very jovial tone.

"Twenty five plants" she said.

You could have knocked me over with a rolling paper.

Oh yes. The term "farm" in California (I learned) means "licensed marijuana-growing-facility."

We don't license that here in Georgia. Why? Because, obviously, you go to hell for growing what the state has determined to be "naughty" plants. Everybody here knows that and we're fine with it because our legislature is never, ever wrong.

More importantly though, how do you bring yourself to bail on your home state? I couldn't do it myself; mostly because I believe Florida, Alabama, Tennessee, and South Carolina are just the leftover pieces of Georgia that we didn't really want and all the rest is a vast epanse of untamed nothingness; but also because my sense of state-identity dictates that I consider all other states in the union "generally terrible."

Georgia is, as I'm sure you know, God's Country.

I was made to live here. I can get from Atlanta to Albany using only neighborhood streets and Wal-Mart parking lots. I belong, but chances are good you don't. Its getting crowded as it is, so if you moved here recently - try California instead, they need good farmers out there.

Perdiddle

We were riding in the car last night to crash a party when I felt the solid "thunk" of fist-hitting-bicep; a sensation I'm all-too familiar with.

My leggy blonde consort followed with an excited "hey look look look!!! Three perdiddles in a row! Three perdiddles in a row!!! LOOK LOOK!! THREEE EPEEEEERRRDIDDDLEEEESSSS!!!!I've never seen that before!" and sure enough - three cars flew past us back-to-back; all missing a headlight.

In the realm of perdiddle likelihood - thats extreme.

Growing up we didn't follow "perdiddle," in our family we had "popeye" which makes a whole lot more sense. Spot a missing headlight, call "popeye" and you got a free shot at whoever was nearest. Its simple, fun, somebody always got hurt, and it aggravated your parents - thereby meeting all the important criteria for a road game.

Having been homeschooled for 18 years I'm always on the lookout for schoolkid details I may have missed so, naturally, I was excited to hear tales of this NEW road game and I was eager to be instructed in the perdiddle rules.

It's pretty disappointing. Basically, if you call "perdiddle" you get to lean over and kiss the other person sweetly on the forehead.

...annnnnddd thats what you get for growing up in a house with three women and no brothers - kissing games.

So, to be funny, when the three perdiddles flew by I said "Hey, next time we see three in a row like that I'll pull straight into the center of the next intersection and we'll get engaged on the hood of the truck!"

She arched an eyebrow and said "Oh, uh huh."

Then, we both turned to face the redlight and, in the first truly blatant, documented, example of how much God hates me; the next three cars through the intersection were all missing a headlight.

"Oh. Uh huh." she said.

Perdiddle.

It Was The Fried Rice What Done It

I've been eating at the same Chinese place (Zen Palate) quite often lately. When I say "quite often lately" I guess what I really mean is that when I call in a to-go order they ask for my phone number, then stop me at the third digit and say "Ohhhh, Mistah Jimmy!" I had no idea that was a big deal, and I like making friends in the food-service industry.

I just didn't realize I had a problem.

Our friend Bobby Pilkington's mom never realized she was an alcoholic until a neighbor pointed out that she drank a 24 pack of Miller High Life between 10AM and 5PM every day, which put her solidly within AA's "alcoholic" bracket. Not only did she not realize her alcoholic status, she was doing just fine and was, by all accounts, a great Mom (if a bit wobbly on her feet) until she got that bit of unwelcome news. Uncle Robert said if she wanted to drink Miller High Life while she did the ironing, he didn't see any reason to aggravate her about it and everybody ought to have just left her alone.

I guess he was right, because her neighbor staged an intervention that day and you know what happened?

She up and died.

Uncle Robert says she was so embarassed to find out she was an alcoholic; she just got in bed one night and never got back out - all because some jackleg neighbor didn't have the common decency to stay out of her trashcan.

Well, we have something in common because I didn't realize my Chinese habit was out of hand either until today, just before lunch, my office neighbor said "HEYYY, Chinese again today Jimmy? You know fried rice is terrible for you. I bet the servers think you're a stalker!"

So, even though I wanted a tuna roll and some wonton soup, at lunchtime I found myself guiltily jogging past Zen Palate to a sandwich place thats terrible; just so the people at Zen Palate don't think I'm weird and feel sorry for me.

Of course, I had to walk past the windows of the Chinese place to get a sandwich. All the servers standing in a group by the hostess stand waiting on the lunch crowd waved when they saw me, but I just scurried by staring straight at the ground.

So, on top of having to eat a crummy ham sandwich for lunch I've probably hurt their feelings, but the worst part is: now I'm probably going to die.

I Prefer My Cialis Chilled

I hate to get stuck on one topic for too long, so I want all 9 of you reading this to know that, after this post, the topic of "ice cream" is officially exhausted. Seriously, I'm allergic to dairy products anyway, so milky stuff in general isn't really that interesting to me.

I want to move on, but first I want to highlight an important family relationship with dairy products that I would like for you to be aware of. According to the always lovely Maggie M. Slocumb; her Dad (my Uncle Buster) comes home every night, sits in front of the tv and hollers "JEANNE...WHERE'S MY ICE CREAM??" over and over until my Aunt Jeanne huffs over to the freezer and brings it to him.

Eccentric? Sure. A bit. But, it gets better.

In order to keep him happy Jeanne puts not 3, not 10 but exactly 9 M&M's in a bowl atop two scoops of ice cream. Why? Because that is exactly how Buster requires it. 9 M&Ms. Seriously. Don't bring him 10 M&Ms -he only wants 9.

Then, about 7 times out of 10, Aunt Jeanne will carry the ice cream into the den and Buster will look up and say "put it in the freezer."

Upon hearing about this little ritual I asked Buster to explain the importance of it, and the general process he had to go through to successfully imprint that kind of training on another person. He didn't really explain anything, he just walled an eye in my general direction and said: "I can't prove it but I think she pops open the caplets and sprinkles Cialis all over my ice cream on Tuesdays and Thursdays."

They are still married which just goes to show you the critical importance of a lifelong dedication to spousal training.

I haven't been able to make sense of it all, but even though I don't recall suffering any unusual effects from eating ice cream at their house (other than the usual allergic itchiness, sleeplessness, fixation on explosives, slight stuffy nose, and narcissistic rage), I've stayed out of their freezer ever since.

I'm not sure what kind of impact I'd have on the world after a bowlfull of Cialis, but I know it would most likely involve a local news team and my underwear - and that's never a good combination.